Abstract

Though older women may choose entrepreneurship as a way to escape discrimination in the labor market, they may face other forms of discrimination in the entrepreneurial domain. Drawing on intersectionality theory, we posit that older women encounter amplified discrimination due to the stereotype-consistent implications from gender and age norms, namely gendered ageism. Using 815,428 individual observations pooled across country–year surveys from 56 countries between 2009 and 2018, we found that older women were least likely to enter entrepreneurship. And this intersectional disadvantage could be mitigated by weakening the normative exclusion and possessing resource endowments that signal capability. However, strategies focused on altering self-cognition—often effective against single-axis discrimination—appeared insufficient. Our study contributes to the literature on stereotype interventions, intersectionality theory and business ethics.

Department(s)

Business and Information Technology

Comments

National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant 72472166

Keywords and Phrases

Business ethics; Gendered ageism; Intersectionality; Stereotype intervention; Women entrepreneurship

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1573-0697; 0167-4544

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2026 Springer, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2026

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