Reconstructing Retirement as an Enterprising Endeavor

Abstract

This article explores issues of age and enterprise in later life as manifested in tensions between retiree and entrepreneurial identities. We utilize the concept of a discursive event to examine time-bound online data, specifically media texts and reader comments associated with the online news coverage of an insurance company report. This report introduced the label Weary to describe “working entrepreneurial and active retirees.” Our analysis shows how keeping healthy and active are constructed as insufficient markers of a productive and successful older age. These markers are supplanted by a neoliberal discourse that prioritizes enterprise and economic productivity in retirement. However, the Weary subject position has implications within this discourse that constrain the valued contribution of older adults to productive work yet deny access to this group to entrepreneurial endeavors. This highlights the destabilization of retirement and critical tensions in its discursive reconceptualization as a period of entrepreneurial endeavor.

Aged and gendered master narratives on entrepreneurship in Finnish higher education

“…Active involvement in working life has become an imperative even in retirement, and entrepreneurship is encouraged as an option for becoming employed at an older age to prolong careers and prevent early retirement (Ainsworth and Hardy, 2008;Tomlinson and Colgan, 2014;Kautonen et al, 2017). However, in contrast to startup/growth and expert entrepreneurship senior entrepreneurship is labeled as "modest" and, thus, undermined in terms of economic growth (see also Whiting and Pritchard, 2020).…”

“…However, prior studies worldwide, as we indicate below, have shown that entrepreneurship is a rather restrictive category to which only a few special individuals have access. An ideal entrepreneur is associated with youth, middle-classness and masculinity (Komulainen, 2006;Ainsworth and Hardy, 2008;Komulainen et al, 2009;Hytti and Heinonen, 2013;Gill, 2014;Whiting and Pritchard, 2020). Villasana et al (2016) showed that Latin American male students reported feeling more creative and better at managing problems and risks than women, and thus indicating greater potential as entrepreneurs.…”

Levelling the playing field? Towards a critical-social perspective on digital entrepreneurship

“…It has been suggested that the virtual nature of exchanges can reduce the stigma experienced by marginalised groups, reduce risk and help overcome high barriers to entry, enabling wider economic participation (Jome et al, 2006). This message is targeted specifically at marginalised people who experience structural barriers to employment and career progression, particularly mothers, retirees, disabled people, young people, and people of colour (Accenture, 2014;Genachowski, 2011;Whiting and Pritchard, 2018;Women Entrepreneurs UK, 2010). By this rhetoric, people from these groups and their intersections are encouraged to embrace entrepreneurship, empower themselves, and in turn, advance the economy.…”

Ageing academics do not retire - they just give up their administration and fly away: a study of continuing employment of older academic international business travellers

“…People may have freedom and autonomy, financial independence and more time for family, leisure, hobbies and travel. In contrast, Whiting and Pritchard (2018), examined 'the weary', a label coined to refer to working entrepreneurial and active retirees, highlighting the destabilisation of retirement and its discursive re-conceptualisation as a period of entrepreneurial endeavour. Driver (2017) highlighted the critical importance of being active and purposeful and remaining an attractive labour commodity.…”