ABSTRACT
The ageing population is a growing concern all across the globe. As an example of a small developing country in South East Asia, Malaysia is a multicultural, multiracial, and multiethnic society comprising Malay, Chinese, Indians, and many other diverse ethnicities. The ageing care centre infrastructure is not up to mark in Malaysia and facing numerous challenges as experienced by ageing tycoon countries such as Japan, Australia, and China. Currently, 365 registered ageing care centres work in various states of Malaysia and women’s participation as caregiverpreneurs is minimal, around 25% compared to other businesses, although women comprise half of Malaysia’s population. Due to rising ageing issues, an ethnographic approach was used to investigate the obstacles women caregiverpreneurs face in Malaysia’s aged care service industry (i.e., ageing care centres), and 20 women caregiverpreneurs were interviewed. The findings revealed that women caregiverpreneurs face various challenges related to management, marketing, staffing, technology, and licensing issues even then the centres are working on a sustainability basis. The present study provided a portrait of Malaysian women as caregiverpreneurs and associated challenges followed by the women entry into ageing care centres and finally narrowed down the arguments as women as caregiverpreneurs and internationalisation.
