Silver Entrepreneurship as an Instrument for Activating Seniors on the Labor Market in Poland

Abstract

The current discourse on the professional activation of seniors is based on the “on the aging society” paradigm. The progressive aging of the population creates new challenges for socio–economic life. The negative phenomena of these changes are withdrawal from public life, loneliness, and even discrimination against seniors. Prevention of these phenomena is widely described in the literature, finding its expression in theories of withdrawal, activity, exchange, modernization, or in the theory of social competence and breaking away, for example. Without negating these theories and concepts, we propose a look at the activity of seniors through the paradigm of “extending human life,” which may actually mean their prolonged professional activity. Of course, this requires the reconstruction of the socio–economic model in both the micro and macro social dimensions with a view to adapting to the aging of society, its manifestations, and consequences. In the article, we present silver entrepreneurship as an instrument of professional activation of seniors that is aimed at the inclusion and utilization of the knowledge, potential, and experience of older people. We perceive the concept of silver entrepreneurship as a component of the theory of entrepreneurship, especially the shaping of the entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviors of seniors.