Intersections on the Road to Self-Employment: Gender, Family and Occupational Class

Are gender differences in the effects of family structure on self-employment participation robust across different forms of self-employment? Using event history analyses of competing risks and data spanning 20 years, I find that women enter non-professional and non-managerial self-employment to balance work and family demands. In contrast, family factors do little to explain women's entrance into professional and managerial self-employment; these women are more similar to their male peers and appear to follow a careerist model of self-employment.