Self-employment, work-family time and the gender division of labour

Abstract

Does being self-employed, as opposed to being an employee, make a difference to how parents with young children can balance work and family demands? Does self-employment facilitate more equal gender divisions of labour? This article uses the Australian Time Use Survey to identify associations between self-employment and mothers' and fathers' time in paid work, domestic labour and childcare and when during the day they perform these activities. The time selfemployed mothers devote to each activity differs substantially from that of employee mothers, while fathers' time is relatively constant across employment types. Working from home is highly correlated with self-employment for mothers, implying the opportunity to be home-based is a pull factor in mothers becoming self-employed. Results suggest mothers use self-employment to combine earning and childcare whereas fathers prioritize paid work regardless of employment type. Self-employment is not associated with gender redistribution of paid and unpaid work, although it facilitates some rescheduling.

Households’ responses to spousal job loss: ‘all change’ or ‘carry on as usual’?

“…While expectations of men's contribution to the care of their children have changed in recent generations and fathers are much more likely to be involved in child-caring (Sullivan, 2010), parenting is still primarily seen as an issue for maternal rather than paternal employment (Schober and Scott, 2012). Self-employed workers have arguably greater autonomy in setting egalitarian work schedules than employees, yet analyses of Australian Time Use Survey data suggests that self-employed mothers use this autonomy to fit around parenting while self-employed fathers pursue patterns of working unfettered by family demands (Craig et al, 2012). Furthermore, a qualitative study of working class couples in the UK finds gendered ideologies remain fundamentally important to some fathers, suggesting that a 'guy thing' may still be occurring (Braun et al, 2010: 26).…”

Spatio–Temporal Unboundedness: A Feature, Not a Bug, of Self-Employment

“…The exception is the association of variable hours with own-account working, which is not gendered. Thus, both temporal variability and unsocial hours are strongly associated with own-account self-employment and, for women especially, self-employment is associated with weekend work, a form of 'time-shifting' (Craig et al, 2012). This analysis shows, therefore, that unbounded spaces (mobile and home) and times (temporal duration, schedule and variability) are associated with both own-account and employer selfemployment.…”

“…Rather, as Luckman (2015: 155) points out, self-employment 'can operate as a twenty-first century poorhouse …including many people working hours far in excess of those they desire for familyfriendliness'. Craig, Powell and Cortis (2012) find that, indeed, self-employed mothers do not work shorter hours, but they are able to engage in 'time-shifting', for example, moving their working hours so that they work fewer daytime hours and more at atypical times (evenings or weekends). Primarily, however, in their study self-employment facilitates the juggling of tasks, because it involves a spatial realignment and home-working.…”

Becoming an Entrepreneur: a Diversity of Factors, Types and Pathways

“…The cases that match this profile show the impact family life can have on women's career choices (Annink and den Dulk, 2012;Craig et al, 2012;Hughes, 2003). The fundamental idea of the analysis of these cases is that for these women, entrepreneurship came about as a solution to the need to simultaneously invest in work and family and not feel obliged to make a unilateral choice between one of these two spheres of life.…”