From survival to resilience: late-life entrepreneurship and the well-being of elderly women in Sri Lanka

Abstract

This qualitative inquiry examines the influence of late-life entrepreneurship on the economic and emotional health of older women in Sri Lanka. It fills an immense gap in existing literature that was dominated by quantitative data and has seldom paid much attention to the lived experiences and intersectional issues of these demographic encounters. Based on a social constructivist paradigm, the study uses in-depth semi-structured interviews with ten women entrepreneurs aged 60 years and above in the Colombo District. The results indicate that late-life entrepreneurship is a complex process because it is a necessity and an empowerment phenomenon. On an economic level, it is a life and death strategy, a much-needed source of income, and a lessening of dependence on family or insufficient pensions. Emotionally, it is an effective power tool to build resiliently, recovery of purpose, dignity and social bond, which counter act the usual loneliness and stress problems. Nevertheless, major structural hiccups, such as inaccessibility to credit, technological illiteracy and health restrictions, are also noted in the study to ensure that these enterprises cannot grow to stabilize in the long-term. The study finds that as much as entrepreneurship is a two-fold benefit to financial and emotional health, it remains a potential that can be fully exploited by specific and gender- and age-sensitive policy interventions that mitigate these systemic challenges.