Women’s Entry into Self-employment in Urban China: The Role of Family in Creating Gendered Mobility Patterns

• Main Authors: ZHANG, Qian Forrest, PAN, Zi
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2012
• Subjects: self-employment; family; job mobility; gender segregation; Asia; China; Asian Studies; Family, Life Course, and Society; Gender and Sexuality
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1057; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/2313/viewcontent/WomenEntrySelfEmploymentChina_2012_WD.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

How did family characteristics affect women and men differently in self-employment participation in urban China? Analyses of national data show dual marriage penalties for women. Marketization made married women more vulnerable to lay-offs from state-sector jobs; their likelihood of being pushed into unskilled self-employment surpassed that of any other groups. The revitalized patriarchal family tradition favored men in family businesses and resulted in their higher rates of entering entrepreneurial self-employment. Married women who had the education to pursue entrepreneurial self-employment were constrained by family responsibilities to state-sector jobs for access to family services, and had much lower rates in entering self-employment.