Many energetic retirees want to start a new business after a career working in another field. Some see it as a chance to fulfill a dream, working in an area dear to their hearts.
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation's 2015 Kauffman Index: Startup Activity found that 25.8 percent of the businesses launched in 2014 were founded by people ages 55 to 64,
U.S. News and World Report said.
A study in the same year from Encore.org found that 39 percent of older Americans who participated in the survey said they wanted to start a new business or a nonprofit.
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"It's an opportunity to maybe do something that you've really wanted to do for a long time," Nancy Collamer, the author of "Second-Act Careers," said, according to U.S. News.
She added: "Many retirees want to work on their own terms, follow their passions and set their own schedules. And, of course, many older people have been forced out of their jobs sooner than they had planned."
The challenge for retirees is determining a good fit for their skills and interests, as well as determining finances and both the financial and time investment starting a new business would take.
Some people have been forced into retirement, and starting a business is another way for them to
engage in work, USA Today noted.
More people are starting businesses later in life, Deborah Banda, the AARP's interim vice president of the financial security team, told USA Today. "It can be a way to strengthen their financial security, and it can give people great personal satisfaction," she said.
The Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity reported that about a quarter of all news business start-ups were led by workers 55 to 64. That figures is up from 14 percent in 1996, USA Today noted.
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The reason, said Banda: "A lot of older workers lost their wage-and-salary positions in the recession, and they haven't been able to find another one, but they still need an income so they are hanging up their shingle," leading them to become budding entrepreneurs.
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