Mothers in Company: the entrepreneurial motivations of self-employed mothers in Australia

Abstract

Women with young children are significantly more likely to be self-employed than other female workers in Australia, at least for a period of their lives. This study applies a theoretically-informed thematic analysis to the career narratives of 60 self-employed mothers to answer the central research question: what motivates some women to become self-employed after motherhood? Drawing on the predominant push-pull theory of entrepreneurship, and the sociological literature examining the work-family nexus, this study proposes that women fall into four motivational categories based on the extent to which self-employment is a proactive or reactive response, grounded in the women’s preferences for career, family, or both. These categories are: family-focused entrepreneurs (n=5), who are pulled into self-employment by their desire to provide exclusive, home-based maternal care for their young children, while supplementing the household income; career-focused entrepreneurs (n=4), who choose self-employment purposefully and deliberately, motivated by a desire for professional autonomy, career advancement, financial gain, or status; opt-in entrepreneurs (n=16), who choose self-employment voluntarily, motivated mainly by a desire to create meaningful, rewarding work that does not impinge on family life; and forced-out entrepreneurs (n=35), who perceive themselves as pressed or pushed into entrepreneurship by gendered barriers within organisations and society, or other structural constraints. This study finds that women’s motivations for becoming self-employed after motherhood are heterogeneous, and do not fit a single, family-driven narrative. However, for a majority of women, the transition to self-employment is motivated by a complex interplay between their preferences for career and family, in a context of constraint rather than choice.