GOOD NEWS- You’re (probably) not too old to start your own business. People aged 55-64 are increasingly starting up new businesses, accounting for a significant percentage of new entrepreneurial activity across the US, UK, France, and Germany, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor.

Many older entrepreneurs have emerged where they’ve stepped down from their successful careers utilizing the skills they gained to create their aspired ventures.

What is behind Gen X’s success? Experience, really. They bring their valuable networks, professional experience and grit in the face of adversity that often the younger generation may not be able to handle, the article explains.

The pandemic was the trigger, again. During that time there was a rise in start-ups founded by people aged 45 to 64, particularly in the UK, where the percentage of businesses started by this age group increased by 7.9 percentage points y-o-y to 33.3% in 2021, according to a separate GEM report (pdf).

This reflected the rise of asset-rich individuals as well as allowed them to combat issues like rising costs and workforce reductions that were caused by the 2020 pandemic, according to Financial Times.

The complications of mid-life still present challenges. Juggling family responsibilities and personal well-being is the greatest challenge, explains the article, but older entrepreneurs often have more to gain due to their industry experience and the higher likelihood of achieving success compared to their younger counterparts.

A 50-year-old entrepreneur has a higher chance of achieving great success compared to a 30-year-old entrepreneur. Why? Having prior experience in a specific industry greatly influenced the likelihood of creating a business with rapid growth, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research paper (pdf).

There is still some bias. VCs are still wary of backing older entrepreneursas they believe that twenty-somethings are just more creative,cheaper, and have less to lose, shares Eileen Burbidge, partner of emerging technology fund Passion Capital.

It only took nine decades, but a woman archaeologist who was instrumental in understanding the culture of ancient Greece’s Olynthus was finally credited for her work. After having her work plagiarized by a male colleague, the Library of Congress has taken a historic step to acknowledge Mary Ellingson’s work, the University of Evansville said in a press release. Ellington was a former archaeologist at the university and led excavations that gave unprecedented insight into the domestic architecture and culture of Olynthus, an ancient Greek city. But, the male professor who led the project eventually took her work and put his name on it. This came to light when Ellingson’s photo album and letters from 1931 were rediscovered.

Women’s contributions to academia often lack recognition. Think of Marie Curie, who had to fight for a nomination but became the only person to win two Nobel prizes in different sciences. Or, Henrietta Leavitt who discovered a way to measure astronomical distances but was ignored until after her death. The phenomenon is nothing new, which is why the university called this “a triumph for all those who have tirelessly sought justice for a woman unjustly omitted from the pages of history,” in the press release.

The problem persists. In fact, in a 2013 paper by historian Margaret Rossiter titled “The Matilda Effect in Science Communication,” she finds that men and women find research papers by men to be stronger than those by women, and showed preference for the male authors as possible future collaborators.

Rossiter coined the term The Matilda Effect in 1993, naming it after Matilda Gage, a suffragist who had her own work overlooked by historians. She then calls for institutions to rectify the issue of misplaced credit.

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