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What Drives Post-Retirement-Age Knowledge-Based Self-Employment? An Investigation of Social, Policy and Individual Factors

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Entrepreneurship, Self-Employment and Retirement
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Abstract

Despite the collision of the recent large-scale economic downturn and the entrance of the first baby boomer cohort into wage-and-salary retirement ages, self-employment rates among older adults continue to be an important alternative to retirement in later life (Cahill, Giandrea, and Quinn 2013).1 The prevalence of self-employment increases substantially with age, both because self-employed people work longer and many wage-and-salary workers2 — that is, those working for others — turn to self-employment in later life. In fact, in the United States, approximately 18 per cent of employed persons over 65 are self-employed (Hippie 2010).

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© 2015 Ting Zhang

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Zhang, T. (2015). What Drives Post-Retirement-Age Knowledge-Based Self-Employment? An Investigation of Social, Policy and Individual Factors. In: Sappleton, N., Lourenço, F. (eds) Entrepreneurship, Self-Employment and Retirement. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137398390_6

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