Rationality of Self-Employment: Do Female and Male Entrepreneurs Differ?

Bögenhold, Dieter and Fachinger, Uwe (2014): Rationality of Self-Employment: Do Female and Male Entrepreneurs Differ? Published in: Journal of Business and Finance , Vol. 1, No. 2 (2014): pp. 42-62.

Abstract

It is not clear, whether changes in self-employment are primarily driven by the necessity to take part in the labour market, or if those activities reflect new modes of labour market integration revealing new opportunities and markets, which are especially due in wide parts to the service and health care sector. A fundamental question is how gender matters when investigating the above-mentioned developments. Do we find specific “gender patterns” within the increasing expansion of self-employment, or will the new chances and risks lead to greater equality of opportunities? Is the increase of solo-self-employment of females driven by the need to earn a living, or is it the result of females taking risks, e.g. to become more economically independent? The structural changes of the labour market raise the question whether self-employment can be seen as a strategy for women to achieve work-life balance and whether these changes in the organisation of work are leading to an improvement of the quality of (working) life. To gather more reliable information, the relationship between self-employment, partner’s employment, the household and children is explored, using Germany as an example. The influence of personal as well as household and labour market characteristics for women and men in a family context and their probability of being self-employed as compared to those who have chosen formal, gainful employment are analysed. The empirical analysis shows that people’s intentions to engage in a specific volume and with specific degrees of motivation reflect diverse areas in the organization of private life. The rationality of private duties, needs, challenges and aspirations belongs to the factors, which influence the decision to engage in the labour market. A crucial impact on those decisions is given by the individual’s domestic background and what the household looks like. Issues of firm partnership, marital status, and the existence of children and age of children or elderly relatives are factors, which provide different life-worlds, which set relevant parameters. In the end, the household as the entity and composition of different interests, motivations, needs, and obstacles proves to be the real acting subject of our analysis.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Self-employment, Gender, Labour Market, Diversity, Household, Entrepreneurship, Inequality, Germany, Logistic Regression.
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J0 - General; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J0 - General > J00 - General; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z13 - Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology ; Social and Economic Stratification

References

Acs, Zoltan J.; Desai Sameeksha, Jolanda Hessels (2008). Entrepreneurship, economic development and institutions, in: Small Business Economics, 31: 219–234.

Aidis, Ruta / Wetzels, Cecile. 2007. Self-Employment and Parenthood: Exploring the Impact of Partners, Children and Gender. IZA Discussion Paper IZA, No. 2813. Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

Andersson, Pernilla: Happiness and health: Well-being among the self-employed, in: The Journal of SocioEconomics, Vol. 37, 2008, pp. 213-236.

Arum, Richard, and Walter Müller. eds. 2004. The Return of Self-Employment. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Audretsch, David B. 2007. The Entrepreneurial Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Beck, Ulrich (2009). World at Risk. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Benz, M. and Frey, B. (2008). The value of doing what you like: Evidence from the self-employed in 23 countries. In: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 68(3-4):445-455.

Binder, Martin; Coad, Alex: Life satisfaction and self-employment: A matching approach, Papers on Economics & Evolution, Max Planck Institute of Economics, 2010.

Blau, Francine D., Brinton, Mary C., Grusky, David B. 2006. The Declining Significance of Gender ? In: Blau, Francine D., Brinton, Mary C., Grusky, David B. (eds.). The Declining Significance of Gender ?, New York: Russel Sage Foundation, 3-33.

Boehle, Mara / Schimpl-Neimanns, Bernhard .2010. Mikrozensus Scientific Use File 2008: Dokumentation und Datenaufbereitung. GESIS-Technical Reports, GESIS Leibnitz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Mannheim.

Bögenhold, Dieter 1996. Das Dienstleistungsjahrhundert. Kontinuitäten und Diskontinuitäten in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Stuttgart: Enke 1996.

Bögenhold, Dieter, Fachinger, Uwe. 2012. How Diverse is Entrepreneurship? Observations on the Social Heterogenity of Self-employment in Germany, in: Jean Bonnet, Marcus Dejardin and Antonia Madrid-Guijarro (eds.): The Shift to the Entrepreneurial Society: A Built Economy in Education, Sustainability and Regulation, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishers, 227-241.

Bögenhold, Dieter, Fachinger, Uwe. 2010. Entrepreneurship and Regional Distribution in Germany: Do Self-Employment Ratios Converge and Does Gender Matter, in: Jean Bonnet et al. (eds.): The Entrepreneurial Society. How to fill the gap between Knowledge and Innovation, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar: 54-76.

Bonnet, J., D.G. Pérez de Lema, und H. v. Auken. 2010. The Entrepreneurial Society. How to fill the gap between Knowledge and Innovation. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Bosma, N., Z. J. Acs, E. Autio, A. Coduras, und J. Levie 2009. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. 2008 Executive Report. Babson Park, Santiago, London.

Caliendo, Marco / Kritikos, Alexander S. 2009. “I Want to, But I Also Need to”: Start-Ups Resulting from Opportunity and Necessity, Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). 4661: 2-33.

Castells, Manuel. 2010. The Rise of the Network Society, Chichester: Wiley.

Charles, Maria, Grusky, David B. 2004. Occupational Ghettos. The Worldwide Segregation of Women and Men. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Charles, Maria, and Bradley, K. 2009. Indulging our gendered selves? Sex segregation by field of study in 44 countries. In: American Journal of Sociology 114: 924-976.

England, Paula, Allison, P., Li, S., Mark, N., Thompson, J., Budig, M. and Sun, H. 2007. Why are some academic fields tipping toward female? The sex composition of U.S. fields of doctoral degree receipt, 1971 – 2002. In: Sociology of Education 80: 23-42.

Folta, Timothy; Frédéric Delmar; Karl Wennberg 2010. Hybrid Entrepreneurship, in: Management Science, 2010, Vol. 56: 253-269

Georgellis, Y., & Wall, H. J. (2005). Gender differences in self-employment. In: International Review of Applied Economics, 19(3), 321–342

Heinonen, Jarna, & Hytti, Ulla (2010). Back to basics: the role of teaching in developing the entrepreneurial university. Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 11(4), 283-292.

Hytti, Ulla 2005. New Meanings for Entrepreneurs: From risk-taking heroes to safe-seeking professionals. In: Journal of Organizational Change Management, Special Issue: Change in the Feminine: Women in Change, 18, No. 6, 594–611.

Javidan, Mansur; Peter W. Dorfman, Mary Sully de Luque, and Robert J. House (2006): In the Eya of the Beholder: Cross Cultural Lessons in Leadership from Project GLOBE, in: Academy of Management Perspectives, Febr., 67-90.

Kalleberg, Arne L.: Precarious Work, Insecure Workers: Employment Relations in Transition, in: American Sociological Review, Vol. 74, No. 1, 2009, pp. 1-22.

Kalleberg, Arne L. 2011. Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment Systems in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Kelley, D., N. Bosma, und J.E. Amorós. 2010. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2010 Global Report. Babson Park, Santiago, London.

Körner, Thomas / Puch, Katharina .2009. Der Mikrozensus im Kontext anderer Arbeitsmarktstatistiken. Ergebnisunterschiede und ihre Hintergründe, in: Wirtschaft und Statistik, No. 6, 528-552.

Körner, Thomas / Puch, Katharina. 2011. Coherence of German Labour Market Statistics, Wiesbaden.

Kohli, Martin. 2007. The institutionalization of the life course: looking back to looking ahead, in: Research in Human Development, Vol. 4, 2007, pp. 253–571.

Lombard, K. (2001). Female self-employment and demand for flexible, nonstandard work schedules .In: Economic Inquiry, 39(2), 214–237.

Luber, Silvia, 2003: Berufliche Selbständigkeit im Wandel. Frankfurt: Lang Publishers.

Mayer, Karl Ulrich. 2009: New Directions in Life Course Research, in: Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 35, pp. 413-433.

Minniti, Maria: Female Entrepreneurship and Economic Activity, in: European Journal of Development Research 2010, 22, 294-312.

Müller, Walter and Richard Arum 2004. Self- employment dynamics in advanced economies, in R. Arum and W. Müller (eds), The Reemergence of Self- employment: A Comparative Study of Self- employment Dynamics and Social Inequality, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 1–35.

Shane, Scott 2008. The Illusions of Entrepreneurship. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Soerensen, Jesper B., Fassiotto, Magali A.: Organizations as Fonts of Entrepreneurship, in:

Organization Science September/October 2011 vol. 22 no. 5, 1322-1331.

Leoni, Thomas; E. Martin Falk: Gender and field of study as determinants of self-employment. In: Small Business Economics, 2010 34:167–185.

Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1963. The Theory of Economic Development, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schimpl-Neimanns, Bernhard / Herwig, Andreas .2011. Mikrozensus Scientific Use File 2009: Dokumentation und Datenaufbereitung, Technical Reports 2011/11, GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Mannheim.

Statistisches Bundesamt (ed.) 2012. Mikrozensus. Bevölkerung und Erwerbstätigkeit. Stand und Entwicklung der Erwerbstätigkeit. Deutschland, 2010, Fachserie 1, 4.1.1, Wiesbaden.

Stephan, Paul E. / El-Ganainy, Asmaa 2007. The entrepreneurial puzzle: explaining the gender gap, in: Journal of Technology Transfer 32, 475-487.

Piorkowsky, Michael-Burkhard / Buddensiek, Marit. 2011. Selbstständige in Deutschland 2006 - 2010 mit einer Sonderauswertung nach Wirtschaftsbereichen 1996 - 2008. Der Selbstständigen-Monitor mit dem vollständigen Datensatz des Mikrozensus des Statistischen Bundesamtes. Bonn: Professur für Haushalts- und Konsumökonomik. Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

Poschke, Markus. 2010. “Entrepreneurs out of Necessity”: A Snapshot, Bonn, Institute for the Study of Labor. 4893: 2-13.

Tung, Rosalie T. and Alain Verbeke (2010). Beyond Hofstede and GLOBE: Improving the quality of cross-cultural research, in: Journal of International Business Studies, 41, 1259–1274.

Veenhoven, Ruut: The Four Qualities of Life. Ordering Concepts and Measures of the Good Life, in: Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol. 1, 2000, pp. 1-39.

Verheul, Ingrid / van Stel, André (2010): Entrepreneurial Diversity and Economic Growth. In: Bonnet, Jean / García-Pérez-de-Lema, Domingo / van Auken, Howard (eds.): The Entrepreneurial Society. How to Fill the Gap Between Knowledge and Innovation. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 15-35.

Verheul, Ingrid; Roy Thurik; Isabel Grilo; Peter van der Zwan. 2012. Explaining preferences and actual involvement in self-employment: Gender and the entrepreneurial personality, in: Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 33, 325-341.

Weber, Max 1972. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr Publishers.

Wellington, A. J. (2006). Self-employment: The new solution for balancing family and career? In: Labour Economics, 13, 357–386.

Welsh, Dianne / Dragusin, Mariana (2006): Women-entrepreneurs: A dynamic force of the small business sector, in: Amfiteatru Economic 20, 60-68.

Wölfl, Anita (2005). The Service Economy in the OECD Countries. OECD Statistical Analysis of Science, Technology and Industry, OECD Working Paper 3-2005. Paris