{"id":31772,"date":"2022-11-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/new-study-why-more-mothers-with-young-children-are-starting-businesses\/"},"modified":"2025-03-13T12:31:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T11:31:05","slug":"new-study-why-more-mothers-with-young-children-are-starting-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/new-study-why-more-mothers-with-young-children-are-starting-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"NEW STUDY: Why more mothers with young children are starting businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"ingress\">Many people who run their own business think it fits well with family life.<br \/>\nFlexible working hours, being your own boss&#8230; But there is something completely different that drives women with young children to start a business. <\/h3>\n<p>  &#8211; &#8220;The women we talked to waited to start a business until their child started preschool.<br \/>\nIt is perceived as too complicated to run a business and be on parental leave,&#8221; says Magdalena Markowska, researcher at J\u00f6nk\u00f6ping International Business School.   <\/p>\n<h2>Three types of entrepreneurial mothers<\/h2>\n<p>  Together with colleagues, she has studied why more and more women with young children are starting businesses.<br \/>\nThrough interviews, they have found three types: &#8211; First, there are the entrepreneurial mothers who see entrepreneurship as the <i>obvious choice<\/i>.<br \/>\nThey are active protagonists in their decisions to become entrepreneurs at some point in their careers.<br \/>\nSuch stories also include role models and people who inspired them.<br \/>\n&#8211; We also have those women who see entrepreneurship purely as a way of <i>practicing their profession<\/i>, with which they strongly identify.<br \/>\nFinally, there are the entrepreneurial women who slip into entrepreneurship <i>with no plans whatsoever<\/i>. They are often satisfied with their careers but parental leave makes them see entrepreneurship as an opportunity,&#8221; explains Magdalena Markowska, telling the story of one woman in the study who is a lawyer but quit her job to produce a certain type of baby food &#8211; an idea she had during her parental leave.       <\/p>\n<h2>Time for reflection and an equal relationship crucial<\/h2>\n<p><figure id=\"attachment_foto1h\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-foto1h\" style=\"width: 190px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-foto1h lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/esbri.se\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/MagdalenaMarkowska_190.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"190\" height=\"auto\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 190px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 190\/268;\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-foto1h\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Magdalena Markowska. Photo: Patrik Svedberg.<\/figcaption><\/figure>  The women testify that during their parental leave they have had plenty of time to reflect and think about their careers and other life choices.<br \/>\nAnd it turns out that time is a crucial factor in women&#8217;s decisions to become entrepreneurs.<br \/>\n&#8211; They described the choice to start a business as either a quest for an authentic self, in search of a challenging career or in response to an identified opportunity.<br \/>\nBut whatever the path to entrepreneurship, time for reflection is something that unites the women&#8217;s stories.<br \/>\nTime is a resource.<br \/>\nBeyond time as a redeeming element, the researchers see another crucial factor for women with young children to take the leap to start a business.<br \/>\n&#8211; &#8220;The vast majority of women we have spoken to describe having an equal relationship.<br \/>\nThe partner is involved in the housework and in taking care of the children,&#8221; says Magdalena Markowska.<br \/>\nContact<strong>magdalena.markowska@ju.seMer about the study<\/strong> The study was conducted by Magdalena Markowska, Helene Ahl and Lucia Naldi at J\u00f6nk\u00f6ping University and is published in the scientific journal Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.1177\/10422587221126493\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">To the study.<\/a> In another study, the researchers have seen a trend of more and more women with young children becoming entrepreneurs.<br \/>\nThe same study shows that the more parental days the father takes, the greater the likelihood that the women (with young children) choose to start their own business.           <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s11187-019-00275-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s11187-019-00275-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">To the study.<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many people who run their own business think it fits well with family life. Flexible working hours, being your own boss&#8230; But there is something completely different that drives women with young children to start a business. &#8211; &#8220;The women we talked to waited to start a business until their child started preschool. It is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":27633,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[136,404],"tags":[120],"class_list":["post-31772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-visa-deepl","tag-theme"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33048,"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31772\/revisions\/33048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}