Senior entrepreneurship: how subjective age affects seniors’ entrepreneurial intentions

This paper focuses on the concept of subjective age, which has mainly been studied in the fields of gerontology, psychology and marketing. This paper explores the potential effect of the rejuvenating trend on entrepreneurial intention (EI) among seniors based on a sample of 224 seniors aged 45 years old and more. A two-step procedure was performed to test our hypotheses: a hierarchical regression analysis and a bootstrapping procedure. The results reveal a direct effect of the rejuvenating trend on EI among seniors. Also it reveals that social norms mediate this effect. Future studies should integrate other ageing-related individual variables such as generativity, death anxiety and perceived health. As our findings reveal the entrepreneurial potential of seniors, it is necessary to create accompanying structures dedicated to this specific population. This is the first paper to explore the link between subjective age and EI, as prior research has mainly investigated the effect of chronological age.