Impact of Age and Gender on Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and Fear of Entrepreneurial Failure

Abstract

This study applies life-stage theory to investigate the still ill-understood effects of age on the behavioral tendencies of male and female entrepreneurs. Hypotheses for effects on entrepreneurial self-efficacy and fear of entrepreneurial failure are tested in a gender-stratified cross-sectional random sample using U.S. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data (2013 – 2018). Results support strong non-linear age effects and challenge the dominant assumptions in the established entrepreneurship literature that what we know about middle-aged entrepreneurs will more or less also hold for the increasingly important cohorts of junior and senior entrepreneurs. Age effects also differ substantially across gender. Taken together, these findings outline highly complex age effects and suggest the urgent need to account explicitly for both age and gender effects in models theorizing about entrepreneurial behavior and outcomes.