Children and family: A barrier or an incentive to female self‐employment in Norway?

• Published date: 01 June 2014
• Author: Marit RØNSEN
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1564-913X.2014.00207.x
• Date: 01 June 2014

International Labour Review, Vol. 153 (2014), No. 2

Copyright © The author 2014

Journal compilation © International Labour Organization 2014

Children and family:

A barrier or an incentive to

female self-employment in Norway?

Marit RØNSEN*

Abstract. The under-representation of women in entrepreneurship and self-

employment is common across cultures and countries, but the reasons for this pat-

tern are still not well understood. This case study of Norway examines the inuence

of women’s family and household situation in this respect, including the presence

of children and their ages, the role of the partner and the household’s nancial

resources. The results indicate that while children do not hinder female self-

employment, its propensity is negatively related to the partner’s working hours and

positively related to him being self-employed himself. The causal direction of

these relationships is difcult to establish, however.

The near-universal gender gap in entrepreneurship has received a lot of

scholarly attention over recent years, but it is still not well understood.

Among its policy suggestions for promoting female entrepreneurship, the

OECD (2004) has stressed the importance of women’s access to affordable

childcare and equal treatment in the labour market. One might therefore ex-

pect countries with high female labour force participation rates and high scores

on gender equality to have comparatively high ratios of female to male en-

trepreneurship. Yet, the case of Norway shows that this is not necessarily so.

Women only accounted for about 25 per cent of early-stage entrepreneurs in

Norway in 2010, which is lower than in most other industrialized countries

(Kelley et al., 2011). In 2010, 11.5 per cent of the Norwegian male population

aged 16–64 years was engaged in early-stage entrepreneurial activity, whereas

the corresponding proportion among women was 4.5 per cent (Bullvåg, Kolve-

reid and Åmo, 2011). Relative to countries with comparable economies, this

* Research Department, Statistics Norway, email: Marit.Ronsen@ssb.no. This work con-

stitutes a part of the research project “Entrepreneurship in Norway: Dynamics, barriers and out-

comes” supported by the Research Council of Norway. The author wishes to thank Mirjam Praag,

Arvid Raknerud and Kjetil Telle for their constructive comments on an earlier and enlarged ver-

sion of this article.

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publication does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO.