How Gender Affects Life Course Pathways to Entrepreneurship

How Gender Affects Life Course Pathways to Entrepreneurship

Dr Julia Rouse Chair, Gender and Enterprise Network Director, MMUBS CBS Clusters /

Today: Engaged Scholarship • Putting academic research evidence and argument alongside practice based knowledge • Making sense together of ‘wicked’ social problems • Feminist organising /

“The scholarship of engagement means connecting the rich resources of the university to our most pressing social, civic and ethical problems. . . . I have this growing conviction that what’s also needed is not just more programs, but a larger purpose, a sense of mission, a larger clarity of direction” —Ernest Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate

Self-Employment in the UK (ONS, 2014) • At a 40 year peak (4.6m; 15% of main jobs) – Particular growth in older workers and women (up 34% but still only 1/3 of the self-employed)

• During/post-recession – Most employment growth = self-employment – Exit rate after 5 years : 32-37% down to 23% – Earnings declined by 22%

• Most common occupations: builders, taxis, joiners – For women: domestics, childminders, hairdressers

My Concerns: • How does entrepreneurship (informal trade, selfemployment, small business owner-management) fit into families, life courses and communities? • How can entrepreneurship be a route of social mobility (or at least stability)? – Overcoming gender, class, ethnicity structures?

• How can we innovate?

Key elements of my work: • Longitudinal analysis of enterprise programmes Critique of ‘enterprise inclusion’ policy Critique of welfare/childcare policies

• Statistical modelling of life course pathways into entrepreneurship and of entrepreneur earnings • Maternity in small enterprise: for entrepreneurs, employers, employees

My collaborators: • Dr Dilani Jayawarna, Professor John Kitching • Dr Allan Macpherson, Dr Natalie Sappleton, Dr Asma Mirza  Manchester, Tameside, Salford councils  NEA/NES Programme  European Social Fund  Economic and Social Research Council  Leverhulme Trust  Oxfam  Equality and Human Rights Commission

First: what is this process of ‘entrepreneurship’? • Entrepreneurship – the mobilisation of resources in (profitable) market exchange. • Key resources: Financial capital Human capital Social capital Labour capital

Contextualising Entrepreneurship in Socially Structured Life Courses Social processes affect an individual’s capacity to accrue and mobilise resources in (competitive) market exchange across 3 intersecting life courses: ► Individual ‘career’ ► Household/family ► Business

Intersecting Structuring Forces in Life Courses • Class – the transmission of resources by parents • Gender – socially governed ways of being a wo/man

• Ethnicity – social and cultural practices and resources associated with culturally defined groups

Entrepreneur Motivations in Early Establishment: Gendering  Reluctant entrepreneurs Convenience entrepreneurs Social entrepreneurs Economically driven entrepreneurs Learning and earning entrepreneurs Prestige and control entrepreneurs

The Effect of Motivations on Businesses (Female Dominated)  Convenience entrepreneurs Low debt/time investment, slow growth  Social entrepreneurs Dependence on grants, high time commitment, no/low growth

The Effect of Motivations on Businesses (Male Dominated)  Economically driven entrepreneurs Relatively high debt/time investment, moderate growth  Learning and earning entrepreneurs Balanced investment, high time commitment, niche strategies, high growth  Prestige and control entrepreneurs High debt investment, low time commitment, high value strategies, slow growth

The Effect of Motivations on Businesses (Female and Male)  Reluctant (young) entrepreneurs Low investment, low value strategies, slow/no growth

The Effect of Life Course on Start-Up • It’s a class thing: more likely to start-up if: – Your parents had a better job, more wealth, a solid education. – You have a better job, more work experience, higher savings/income. – Your household is wealthy • But poverty encourages some ‘survival self-employment’

A Class Thing Intersected by Gender • Having primary care for childcare makes start-up much less likely. – So middle class women may be deterred from applying their class resources due to their mothering role. – The poor are much more likely to start-up if they can invest long hours due to freedom from childcare.

Class Also Affects Entrepreneur Incomes • In businesses that survive ‘birth’: – Year 1: £11,513 (median drawings) + £7200 (median profits) • But there is a concentration of the poor/rich self-employed.

• Class is less predictive of earnings v. start-up – But investment still matters – Household wealth supports income growth

..and care responsibilities help cause an Entrepreneur Gender Pay Gap • Longer hours = higher earnings throughout the business life course. • Being a primary carer = lower earnings. • More housework = lower earnings now and in the future (a ‘scarring effect’ on entrepreneur earnings). • Spouse working long hours = lower earnings but only at first.

And If An Entrepreneur Has a Baby….

Pregnancy in Entrepreneurship • Maternity Policy – No right to maternity leave but must take leave to receive maternity pay – Exclusion from key rights

• Market pressures – business costs/market rejection • How Women Cope – Most absorb costs personally • Self-exploiting / withdrawing their bodies from the market • Working up to the birth and returning within 2 weeks

Supporting Women’s Enterprise Within Life Courses • Improve support for childcare for small enterprise at all stages of the business life course • Overcome the maternity barrier to entrepreneurship

Childcare: How Are We Doing? • • • •

Relative invisibility in enterprise support Until recently, exclusion from Childcare Vouchers Unclear rewards under Tax Credit System And Under Recent Reforms? – Universal Credit: 85% of childcare costs but what is ‘productive self-employment’? – ‘Tax Free Childcare’ – unavailable if earnings are under £50pwk but available during start-up and maternity leave; government pays only 20%.

Maternity: How Are We Doing? • • • •

Women entrepreneurs marginalised in policy reviews Innovations like KIT Days are helpful Childcare support during maternity leave is welcome Proposals: – – – –

Disconnect maternity pay/leave for entrepreneurs Extend maternity pay to suspension on H&S grounds Improve contractors’ right to freedom from discrimination Fund services that facilitate creative solutions

Workshop Discussions (20 mins) • How should awareness gendered life course pathways affect business support? • What childcare measures would help?

• What maternity measures would help? • What else needs to be done?