In a nutshell
This study shows that entrepreneurship unfolds across distinct life-course trajectories, and only some of them lead to lasting economic or psychological benefits.
We are often sold a very specific, and frankly quite narrow, image of what an entrepreneur looks like. It is usually a portrait of restless youth – someone in their early twenties, perhaps in a garage or a dorm room, possessing a frantic energy and a total lack of mortgage-related anxiety. Alternatively, we hear the stories of the “late bloomer” who exits a corporate career at fifty to finally pursue a passion project. But these stories are just snapshots; they treat entrepreneurship like a single event or a static personality trait rather than what it actually is: a career-long journey that unfolds over decades. In their 2025 study, Seok-Woo Kwon and Xiaoying Wang decided to stop looking at entrepreneurship as a snapshot and instead started looking at it as a film. By using data that followed the same group of individuals from their youth in 1979 all the way into their mid-fifties, they were able to map out the distinct “trajectories” that people actually take through their working lives.
What they found is that entrepreneurship is far more varied and persistent than the stereotypes suggest. They identified four main paths that people travel: the first, and most common, is the group that never truly engages with self-employment, choosing the relative stability of organisational life. But the other three paths tell a story of timing and persistence: there are those who enter early and leave, those who wait until their middle years to make their move, and a small but fascinating group of “career-persistent” individuals who enter the fray early and simply never leave. These are the marathon runners of the business world, maintaining their entrepreneurial identity for the better part of thirty years.
Publication year: December 2025
Institutions: Seok-Woo Kwon; Xiaoying Wang
Study type: Longitudinal quantitative study using group-based trajectory modelling
Sample Size: 12,686 individuals from the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (tracked over 30+ years)
Research focus: Understanding entrepreneurial careers as long-term life-course trajectories rather than isolated entry or exit events
Research Methodology: Group-based trajectory modelling of self-employment histories from ages 18 to 50, distinguishing between incorporated and unincorporated entrepreneurship and linking trajectories to early-life family capital and midlife outcomes
Main findings: Most people never engage in entrepreneurship, while those who do tend to follow one of three paths: early but temporary engagement, later-life entry, or long-term career-persistent entrepreneurship. Long-term, career-persistent entrepreneurship, particularly in incorporated ventures, is associated with higher earnings and greater well-being by midlife. Early-life family social and cultural capital shape which entrepreneurial trajectories individuals are likely to follow, while family economic capital plays a more limited role. Gender and racial inequalities widen over time, with disadvantages accumulating most strongly in long-term, incorporated entrepreneurial careers.
Citation: Kwon, S.-W., & Wang, X. (2025). Entrepreneurial career trajectories: An exploratory life-course perspective. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. Link
Perhaps the most striking discovery in this long-term view is what actually puts someone on one of these paths. While we often talk about “seed money” or venture capital, the researchers found that “social seeds” planted in childhood are far more influential. Having a parent or a close family member who ran a business didn’t just provide a financial safety net; it provided a mental map. This “family social capital” acts as a form of early-life exposure that makes the idea of entrepreneurship feel not like a radical risk, but like a viable, understandable career path. It turns out that seeing someone else do it is more powerful than just having the money to do it yourself.
However, the study also reveals some sobering realities about the “long arc.” The gender gap in entrepreneurship isn’t just a hurdle at the starting line; it is a gap that actually widens as the years go by. Men are not only more likely to start, but they are significantly more likely to stay on the “persistent” path, while women’s trajectories are more frequently interrupted or delayed. For those of us in entrepreneurship education, this is a call to move beyond the “launchpad” mentality. If we only teach people how to start, we are only helping them with the first few frames of the movie. The real challenge – and the real opportunity – is understanding how to support people through the different seasons of their lives, ensuring that the entrepreneurial path remains open and sustainable from the first spark of youth through to the wisdom of middle age.
Related Research Recaps:
The Bumpy Reality of Becoming an Entrepreneur, Maintaining Confidence in the Face of Realistic Challenges, and Do Entrepreneurs Burn Out too?.
