NEW RESEARCH | Women run rural businesses for life balance

More and more women are choosing to stay in or return to rural areas to work in family businesses. And the goal is clear – a better quality of life.

Traditionally, people have moved from rural areas to cities, but after the pandemic, the trend has partly reversed. Today, more and more urban families are looking outside the big cities for a quieter life. Shqipe Gashi Nulleshi, at Linnaeus University, has in her doctoral thesis studied how women’s entrepreneurship and rural lifestyle is a way for them to achieve their goals.

– Women who choose to get involved in family businesses outside the cities aim for a more peaceful life. Having a work-life balance and contributing to the community and the region where they live are the main goals for these women.

Taking the experience home

Between 2010 and 2019, one in ten women aged 20-29 left rural areas for education and career opportunities in urban areas. During the same period, almost as many women returned, often well-educated and experienced – and many times with families of their own.

– Both the group of women who stayed in the countryside and those who later return with their own business or start working in their family of origin’s business, make an active and conscious choice that is in line with their need for a flexible working life and a socially sustainable life.

Shqipe Gashi Nulleshi believes that the results of the study highlight the issue of women’s limited opportunities to balance a regular paid job with family life.

– Many entrepreneurial women in rural areas work from home, blending work and private life. Surprisingly, this makes it easier for women to balance their lives than when they are compartmentalized, and is a big reason why family businesses and rural lifestyles have become more attractive to women who want to achieve their goals.

– It is curious that this is what is required for women to make ends meet, and is perhaps something that has received too little political attention.

Growth and profit not the most important thing

Women involved in rural family businesses are not focused on business growth and profit. Instead, they are motivated by the great freedom and by contributing to the community where they live.

– The close link between the community and the business may be the reason why family businesses in rural areas are the best way to achieve work-life balance, says Shqipe Gashi Nulleshi.

Family business frees women

She says that traditional gender norms are being challenged by women running family businesses in rural areas – and by the men involved in the business.

– Women and men who run family businesses together switch between gender roles to manage family and entrepreneurship. This gives women a safe space that empowers and liberates them.