IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp16534.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are Senior Entrepreneurs Happier than Who? The Role of Income and Health

Author

Listed:
  • Fritsch, Michael

    (University of Jena)

  • Sorgner, Alina

    (John Cabot University)

  • Wyrwich, Michael

    (University of Groningen)

Abstract

We propose an extension of the standard occupational choice model to analyze the life satisfaction of senior entrepreneurs as compared to paid employees and particularly retirees in Germany. The analysis identifies income and health status as main factors that shape the relationship between occupational status and life satisfaction. Senior entrepreneurs enjoy higher levels of life satisfaction than retirees and senior paid employees. This higher life satisfaction is mainly due to their higher income. Physical and mental health play a crucial role in determining both an individual's occupational status and their overall life satisfaction. We find that senior self-employed report to be healthier compared to other groups of elderly individuals. However, when controlling for health, retirees exhibit an even higher level of life satisfaction compared to their self-employed counterparts. Heterogeneity analysis of various types of senior entrepreneurs and senior paid employees confirms this general pattern. In addition, we find some evidence indicating that senior entrepreneurs may compromise their leisure time, a main asset of retired individuals. Implications for research, policy, and practitioners are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Fritsch, Michael & Sorgner, Alina & Wyrwich, Michael, 2023. "Are Senior Entrepreneurs Happier than Who? The Role of Income and Health," IZA Discussion Papers 16534, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16534
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp16534.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Curran & Robert A Blackburn, 2001. "Older People and the Enterprise Society: Age and Self-Employment Propensities," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 15(4), pages 889-902, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Minh Pham & Anh Tuyet Thi Nguyen & Duy Thien Tran & Tam Toai Mai & Vinh Trung Nguyen, 2023. "The impact of entrepreneurship knowledge on students' e-entrepreneurial intention formation and the moderating role of technological innovativeness," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-30, December.
    2. Cuong Nguyen, 2018. "Demographic factors, family background and prior self-employment on entrepreneurial intention - Vietnamese business students are different: why?," Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, Springer;UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, December.
    3. Pankaj C. Patel & Yoav Ganzach, 2019. "Returns to balance in cognitive skills for the self-employed: evidence from 18 countries," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 89-109, January.
    4. Adnane MAALAOUI & Imen SAFRAOU & Judith PARTOUCHE & Celine Viala, 2019. "How Subjective Age Affects Entrepreneurship: The Effects of Rejuvenating Trend on Entrepreneurial Intention among Seniors," Working Papers 2019-002, Department of Research, Ipag Business School.
    5. Teemu Kautonen & Simon Down & Maria Minniti, 2014. "Ageing and entrepreneurial preferences," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 579-594, March.
    6. Harms, Rainer & Luck, Florian & Kraus, Sascha & Walsh, Steven, 2014. "On the motivational drivers of gray entrepreneurship: An exploratory study," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 358-365.
    7. Pillet, Jean-Charles & Carillo, Kevin Daniel André, 2016. "Email-free collaboration: An exploratory study on the formation of new work habits among knowledge workers," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 113-125.
    8. Velilla, Jorge & Sánchez Gracia, Rebeca, 2018. "El emprendimiento sénior: Marco conceptual y evidencia empírica [Third-age entrepreneurship: Conceptual framework and empirical evidence]," MPRA Paper 83567, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Pérez-Fernández, Héctor & Cacciotti, Gabriella & Martín-Cruz, Natalia & Delgado-García, Juan Bautista, 2022. "Are interactions between need for achievement and social networks the driving force behind entrepreneurial Intention? A trait activation story," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 65-76.
    10. Samuel Foli & Susanne Durst & Lidia Davies & Serdal Temel, 2022. "Supply Chain Risk Management in Young and Mature SMEs," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-15, July.
    11. Raihan Taqui Syed & Dharmendra Singh & Nisar Ahmad & Irfan Butt, 2024. "Age and entrepreneurship: Mapping the scientific coverage and future research directions," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 1451-1486, June.
    12. Jack I. Richter & Pankaj C. Patel, 2022. "Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the hours lost by self-employed racial minorities: evidence from Brazil," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 769-805, February.
    13. Anmari Viljamaa & Elina Varamäki & Sanna Joensuu-Salo, 2017. "Best of Both Worlds? Persistent Hybrid Entrepreneurship," Journal of Enterprising Culture (JEC), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 25(04), pages 339-359, December.
    14. Adnane Maalaoui & Judith Partouche & Imen Safraou & Celine Viala, 2023. "Senior entrepreneurship: how subjective age affects seniors’ entrepreneurial intentions," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 443-465, February.
    15. Gillian Gray & Helen Lawton Smith, 2020. "Experience versus youth: An exploratory study of the motivations of older entrepreneurs," Working Papers 46, Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research, revised Aug 2020.
    16. Pilková, Anna & Kovačičova, Zuzana, 2021. "Podnikanie na Slovensku v dobe digitalizácie optikou generácií [Doing business in Slovakia in the era of digitalization through the lens of generations]," MPRA Paper 113391, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Yaron Zelekha & Gitit Kavé, 2022. "Entrepreneurial tendency across the adult lifespan," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(2), pages 1-18, February.
    18. Backman, Mikaela & Karlsson, Charlie, 2013. "Who says life is over after 55? Entrepreneurship and an aging population," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 325, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    19. Alexander Chepurenko, 2015. "Entrepreneurship Theory: New Challenges and Future Prospects," Foresight-Russia Форсайт, CyberLeninka;Федеральное государственное автономное образовательное учреждение высшего образования «Национальный исследовательский университет «Высшая школа экономики», vol. 9(2 (eng)), pages 44-57.
    20. Kautonen, Teemu & Kibler, Ewald & Minniti, Maria, 2017. "Late-career entrepreneurship, income and quality of life," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 318-333.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    senior entrepreneurship; health conditions; well‐being; life satisfaction; age;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16534. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.