35,000 – that's roughly the number of sole proprietorships set up last year by people over the age of 50. That's 12% of all newly registered companies. The professional activity of Poles in the pre-retirement period is prolonged. This is optimistic, especially in the context of demographic change and an ageing population.

According to the authors, around 23% of professionally active people over the age of 50 run a business in Poland. It is worth noting that the average in the European Union is 18%.

Interestingly, the share of self-employed people increases with age, up to 44% in the 75+ group, where active professionals are mainly self-employed. At the same time, Polish self-employed people 50+ are less likely to hire employees than citizens of other EU countries. In Poland, one in five people over the age of 50 running a business has employees and, on average, in the EU, one in three.

Men predominate among people 50+ who start a business, but more people of retirement age register more entities.

Interestingly, in 2017, nearly 41.2% of women between the ages of 55 and 59 believed that employers expected them to retire and stop working when they reached retirement age. In 2022, only 21.8% of women in this age group felt this way. In 2017, 31.6% of respondents of pre-retirement age said they wanted to earn extra money in retirement, in 2022 it was already 39%

Source: PARP publications