How aging affects opportunity-necessity entrepreneurship: Demographic and perceptual view

Drawing upon the social-cognitive view and the intentionality-based entrepreneurial behavior model, this study investigates how individuals’ demographics and perceptions affect entrepreneurial intentions and how the effects vary along with age. The data were collected from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2015, which includes 35,141 respondents from 60 countries. Our finding suggests an inverted U-shaped relationship between age and both types of entrepreneurship. We also found a gender gap indicating that women and men are more likely to engage in necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship, respectively. Moreover, higher income and education lower the probability of necessity entrepreneurship, whereas higher income motivates opportunity entrepreneurship. JEL Classification: L26, M13.