Article: Women Entrepreneurs and work/life balance

Women entrepreneurs are often motivated by a desire to ‘make a difference’, both in their personal life and in the lives of others. This is an ambitious goal. First they have to create a business in a male dominated business environment, where they will often be assumed to be the assistant to the ‘real boss’. While they’re doing that, they’ll be shouldering the major share of housework. But entrepreneurship is never easy, and entrepreneurs are a persistent bunch, whether male or female.

After completing my Master of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, I had some questions about women entrepreneurs which I explored with the generous assistance of six Victorian-based women entrepreneurs and the invaluable guidance of the Centre for Women’s Studies & Gender Research at Monash University. I discuss here some of my key findings.

Methodology

My research question was ‘how do women entrepreneurs do business in the mostly masculine business environment of Australia which is often ignorant if not hostile to the issues which women entrepreneurs face?’ My interest was in the ‘lived experience’ of women entrepreneurs, the concerns which affected them on an everyday level. I wanted to enable the women to speak at length about the issues which they felt were important. Thus my research design was qualitative, with in-depth interviews and open ended questions. When analysing the transcripts I explored the underlying meanings of the words and stories the women shared. This approach is built on the premise that language, both individual words and the construction of phrases and sentences, while attempting to communicate, also creates or constructs social meaning. The word ‘entrepreneur’, for instance, contains a number of implications (individual, risk taker, male, wealth creator, innovator, etc). My task was to deconstruct what the women told me using a combination of entrepreneurship and social theories. As I was studying women, feminist social theories were particularly relevant.

‘Pushed’ or ‘Pulled’?

One way entrepreneurs are measured is by whether they are ‘pushed’ or ‘pulled’ into entrepreneurship. To be ‘pushed’ is to do something not because you want to, but because you have to. Unemployment, for instance is an often cited push factor. To be ‘pulled’ is to choose; to be attracted to an opportunity or lifestyle. Here was my first dilemma. When I asked the women about the circumstances of when they first entered entrepreneurship, they spoke about what had been happening in their family and careers, and their ambitions. They spoke about wanting to accommodate and support the changes in their families’ lives, and wanting to develop their own interests. Suzanna(1) had run businesses of her own before she moved to Australia when her husband relocated due to his work. She found having time on her hands unsettling:

We came over here, I got my girls settled into school…[found] a house - all that kind of thing, and because I’m used to working at quite a fast pace, to suddenly find myself with nothing to do was actually quite traumatic! So [I] started thinking about what I could do.” (Suzanna, aged 50)

Isabel asked herself a similar question after relocating to country Victoria when her husband wanted a tree change and she had her first child:

I thought – oh my god what am I going to – I’m stuck here, on this property, with a baby… and I was bored…and I thought this is just going to drive me spare. I’m not really that maternity type, I mean I love my kids… but I just thought gosh, if I don’t make a job for myself, no-one’s going to hand me a job on a platter, and what do I really want to do? (Isabel, aged 47)

Herein lay my dilemma. How could I classify Suzanna and Isabel as ‘pushed’ or ‘pulled’ into entrepreneurship? Both forces were occurring simultaneously. Theses women, and others I interviewed, described being in less than ideal positions and actively looking for better options. What Suzanna’s and Isabel’s experience told me is that the ‘push’ versus ‘pull’ measure was unhelpful. There was another aspect to their experience which was more interesting, and more relevant to current debate.

Private versus Public life and work

This social distinction is central to the ‘work/life’ balance issue which is discussed both in the media and private homes. Like the ‘push’ versus ‘pull’ argument, the ‘work/life’ balance issue is framed as a dualism: an either/or with an implied hierarchy. Private work is invisible, unpaid and of lesser value than public work which has recognizable value both fiscally and in social capital. The work/life balance argument challenges where value is attributed, but in our society we clearly understand a person’s value as related to their work. When we first meet people we commonly ask “what do you do?” not “what are your interests?”

Entrepreneurship is understood to be in the public sphere, separate from a person’s private life, and includes economic and social benefits. The language around entering entrepreneurship (‘becoming an entrepreneur’, ‘launching a business’) suggests movement from the private sphere to the more important public sphere. However, the women I interviewed spoke proudly of being able to combine their private and public lives. Liz, who at fifty runs a company heading toward a turn-over of one hundred million dollars, priorities her family before anything else in her diary. Suzanna considers employing and working with her adult daughter as one of her measures of success.

I observed a merging of ‘private’ and ‘public’ spheres in many aspects of how the women did business. Several of the women run their businesses from their homes, including two who are exporting to several countries. Several of them have employed family members; their husbands as well as their children.

Domestic Disruption

Perhaps the most complex interweaving of private and public life was at the time of creating their businesses. I found a theme of ‘domestic disruption’ preceding the entrepreneurial activity. Prior researchers have written about 3Ds (death, divorce and disease) as having a strong impact on women’s businesses. I observed changes in the women’s lives due to their domestic situation – husband’s career choices, children’s needs – created a career or work shift in the women’s lives which they addressed with entrepreneurship. The women did not complain or raise objections to the disruption; rather, they described their attempts to accommodate the changes. At the same time though, they sought to satisfy their own ambitions. Entrepreneurship was their vehicle to achieve this complex balance.

Visibility

Sociologists understand visibility to contribute to social status. Just as the lack of visibility contributes to the low status of private life, achieving visibility delivers benefits. Winning awards, public speaking, being featured in magazine articles are all examples of how visibility can deliver recognized benefits. Several of the women I interviewed raised examples of their public profile. They reflected on the positive aspects they enjoyed from having a public profile, as well as the opportunity it gave them to ‘give back’ to the community in mentoring, leadership and being a role model.

Different ways to consider entrepreneurship

I found the traditional ways that entrepreneurship has been studied, measured and discussed does not recognise the breadth of ways women engage in entrepreneurship: ‘pushed’ or ‘pulled’ were not helpful measures; their ‘private’ and ‘public’ lives were not neatly separated but interwoven throughout their daily activities. Indeed the reasons the women engaged in entrepreneurship were very personal, and not necessarily likely to produce the traditional success measures of rapid growth and large enterprise. However to achieve a work/life balance through entrepreneurship is to achieve what many Australians - male and female - desire. Entrepreneurship studies, awards criteria and media should consider a broader definition of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial success. This would make visible more versions of success, versions other than the traditional versions of rapid growth and large size, versions which may ultimately appeal to more people and encourage more entrepreneurial activity.

  1. Not her real name: all research subjects were given pseudonyms to protect their privacy.