Abstract
This study investigates how raising the pension age affects late-career women’s hybrid entrepreneurship dynamics. We argue that such reforms can unintentionally reduce natural transitions to full-time entrepreneurship while increasing returns to paid employment. Drawing on real options theory, we propose that raising the pension age diminishes both the value of exercising entrepreneurial real options and the benefits of holding them, prompting women to “close their real option portfolio” by exiting hybrid entrepreneurship. Using a 2011 UK reform that raised women’s pension age from 60 to 65, we find support for these predictions, with less pronounced effects among high-income women.