‘They don’t waste money on women’: gendered entrepreneurial household dynamics and the total social organization of labour

ABSTRACT

This article examines gendered household dynamics and the organization of labour in Entrepreneurial Households (EHs), using Glucksumann’s Total Social Organization of Labour theory (TSOL). It challenges the perception of EHs as neutral spaces and argues that analysing households provides a more nuanced understanding of the gendered dynamics in households where a member is formally self-employed or owns a business. While women may work for these businesses and contribute to household income through other employment, their labour is often unpaid, intertwined with gendered roles and viewed as a readily available household resource rather than formal employment subject to contracts. This leaves women vulnerable to coercion and exploitation, limiting their opportunities for formal employment and education outside the household. Even after years of significant informal work, they may remain without recognized careers or experience. Such gender dynamics and organization of labour also differ, depending on whether the registered business owner is a man or woman. The article subsequently highlights ongoing inequalities in household labour division, often obscured by the prioritization of ‘men’s work’, while emphasizing the crucial role of the broader household in business survival.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• entrepreneurial households
• work
• division of labour
• entrepreneurship
• household dynamics

Introduction

This article focuses on how gendered household dynamics influence the organization of labour, including venture creation and management (Carter et al. 2017; Jayawarna, Marlow and Swail, 2020; Zahra, 2007). The traditional view positions entrepreneurship as a distinct work sphere, separate from household-oriented work (Ram et al. 2001). We take a different perspective, with the household as our unit of analysis, offering nuanced insights into the influence of gendered household relationships on everyday entrepreneurial activity. Alsos, Carter and Ljunggren (2014) suggest that ‘Adopting a household perspective to entrepreneurial activities introduces a novel set of issues … into the research process’ (p. 100). Indeed, emerging research (e.g. Carter et al. 2017; Scott, Dex and Plagnol 2013) underpins arguments that the household is simultaneously an opportunity and barrier for entrepreneurs (Alsos, Carter, and Ljunggren 2014), yet the gendered dynamics within entrepreneurial households, and the gendering of these opportunities and barriers remains under researched (Jayawarna, Marlow and Swail 2020; Small 2023). We subsequently focus on Entrepreneurial Households (EHs), defined as those where at least one household member operates a business alongside others that may be employed, unemployed, retired, etc. (Carter et al. 2017), and consider the gendered ramifications of a household member owning a business (Carter et al. 2017; Wheelock and Oughton 1996). These are not family businesses, per se, with household members having no formal role within the business, despite providing substantive or tacit input (Jayawarna, Marlow and Swail 2020). This approach recognizes that even solo-entrepreneurs are often not isolated in their endeavours, but are likely to draw upon household members for resources such as finance, unpaid labour, emotional support, etc. However, little is known about the gendered dynamics of such exchanges and how these influence the organization of labour in such households over time (Kim et al. 2013; Marlow and Swail 2015). We argue that an EH perspective furthers understanding of how all forms of work controlled by and embedded within the household can support and sustain entrepreneurship (Alsos, Carter, and Ljunggren 2014). We consider household gender dynamics, which encompass the complex and contextual nature of household dynamics (such as birth, marriage, death), supporting a gendered critique of household relations, work and responsibilities in this context (Jayawarna, Marlow and Swail 2020). This is driven by arguments that the effect of the household on the business is often greater than the effect of the business on the household (Olson et al. 2003) and suggestions that gendered household dynamics can potentially inhibit the sustainability and growth of women-owned businesses, while supporting businesses owned by men (Mustafa and Treanor 2022; Small 2023).

Alsos, Carter and Ljunggren (2014) argue that family businesses and households are interrelated but distinct concepts, with an entrepreneurial household perspective focused on viewing entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs ’within the context of his or her family unit, implicitly recognizing the blurred boundaries between the business and private sphere’ (p. 99). Indeed, sociological and economic analyses have shown the importance of focusing on households rather than the individual firm or entrepreneur (Jayawarna, Rouse and Macpherson 2014; Small 2023).

We subsequently progress debate on entrepreneurship and household dynamics (Jayawarna, Marlow and Swail 2020) and how gendered labour is organized in such contexts. In doing so, we answer calls to focus on how gendered household dynamics support (or hinder) entrepreneurship (Small 2023), the need to account for the household context within which entrepreneurship is practiced (Carter et al. 2017); and for the use of more diverse theoretical and methodological approaches in entrepreneurship research (Hamilton 2013).

To address the gaps and critiques outlined above, we use Glucksmann’s (2000, 2005) Total Social Organization of Labour theory (TSOL) to analyse how gendered household dynamics influence the organization of labour in EHs. TSOL is a conceptual framework that identifies work as a multifarious array of labour practices, emphasizing the interconnectedness of work undertaken in domestic/institutional, formal/informal and private/public socio-economic spheres. TSOL views labour practices, both paid and unpaid, as interconnected, shifting, changing and interacting, which produce and reproduce household gender relations (Glucksmann 2000, 1995; Taylor 2004; Venter 2022). As such, it highlights women’s gendered work as entangled with other forms of work (paid and unpaid) and underpinned by contextual social relations. Importantly, it illuminates the interdependencies between the diversity of work across socio-economic contexts (Glucksmann 2000) and how these contribute to both household and business sustainability.

We argue that a TSOL analysis captures complexities in gendered dynamics that accumulate and transfer ‘financial, physical, human, and other resources’ (Aldrich and Cliff 2003 577), from household to business and vice versa. Using the TSOL approach, our focus is not on the individual entrepreneur or business, but the arena of the household within which entrepreneurial (and other) activities are embedded, often involving a multitude of labour practices and actors in varying degrees at different times. This deliberate foregrounding of both activity and setting emphasizes the complex lived reality of EHs, capturing types of activity often overlooked and involving actors previously excluded.

We subsequently ask: How do gendered household dynamics, as analysed through Glucksmann’s Total Social Organization of Labour (TSOL) theory, influence the organization of labour in entrepreneurial households (EHs)?

Our contribution lies in recognizing and accounting for the significance of households as a unit of analysis, by virtue of acknowledging gendering of household capital, family labour, tacit input, relational resources and emotional support, which are integral to sustaining both households and businesses. We highlight ongoing inequality in divisions of labour and how they are reproduced, and often disguised, by normative focus on, and privileging of, ’men’s work’ as atomistic, illustrating the often unacknowledged, yet crucial, role and influence of the broader household in business survival.

The article is structured as follows. First, we consider how the TSOL theory supports understanding of the gendered nature of the EH context, followed by a review of the EH and gendered household dynamics literature, offering a theoretical explanation that links gender, household dynamics, resources and different forms of work. We then outline our methodology, methods, sample and data analysis. We present our findings through 1) narrative case presentation, emphasizing the household as a unit of analysis, followed by; 2) analysis of individual household member accounts. We then discuss key contributions, research implications and future research directions, before offering some final thoughts.

Entrepreneurial households and gendered household dynamics

We adopt Carter et al’.s (2017) definition of EHs: first, a firm emerges from the household, whether physically located within the home or in external premises; second, a household constitutes individuals living in proximity for production and consumption. In their definition, households may host firm(s) that employ a household member or be sites of operation for solo-entrepreneurs, while other household members are in employment outside the EH. Such households therefore draw upon sporadic resources from a range of household incumbents, through formal and informal and/or paid and unpaid work (Glucksmann 1995, 2004, 2005). From this understanding, the household affects, and is inevitably affected by, forms of work that blur the division between domestic and business spheres (Carter and Mwaura 2015), producing and reproducing certain gendered household dynamics.

Pahl’s (1989) foundational work views household dynamics as economic and caring responsibilities (birth, death, marriage and family upheaval), with social biases and gendered expectations of domesticity that are detrimental for women (Bourne and Calás 2013). Indeed, caring and familial responsibilities are traditionally culturally devalued, when transposed to the normative masculine entrepreneur (Lewis et al. 2022). Hence, gendered household dynamics linked with care and reproduction are deemed tacit liabilities (Carter et al. 2017). Furthermore, Jayawarna, Rouse and Macpherson (2014) theoretically linked resources and household dynamics through childcare, as a form of household labour that is highly gendered, mediating the capacity to apply economic resources. Viewed this way, social structures relating to expectations of task division, emotional support and social aspects interlock in a mutual matrix. Household members are subsequently organized according to their gendered labour positions, either formally or informally employed, formally or informally paid or unpaid, retired, etc., and how their role in the household demands substantive or tacit input into businesses based there.

Research on gendered household dynamics has generated debate about hidden normativity (Alsos, Carter, and Ljunggren 2014), which conflates the individual entrepreneur and household as proxy for a business (Jayawarna, Marlow and Swail 2020). We recognize the risk of reifying the collective household in this way, which can disregard gendered relations in its focus on individual businesses and business owners. Our conceptualization subsequently draws on feminist scholars who define gender as a component of social order, with material and ideational effects. Women [and men] fill different positions in (formal and informal, paid and unpaid) work, with positions associated with social roles and cultural expectations in resource distribution, rights and duty of work (Gunnarsson et al. 2016). A focus on gendered household dynamics, therefore, suggests entrepreneurship is not undertaken in isolation, or separately from the household. Rather, it intertwines with social and relational processes involving women (and men) performing and developing gendered relationships (Marlow and Dy 2018). Gender dynamics straddle the intersection between the private home and public world of business (Eddleston and Powell 2008), often positioning women in feminized work and household settings that fit around socially ascribed family commitments. Such work allows them to respond to gendered household dynamics (Meliou and Edwards 2018), but can result in constrained employment progression, low pay (DeMartino and Barbato 2003), and precarious work, e.g. unsecured formal jobs, with no access to formal capital or welfare benefits and social protection (Alacovska 2018).

Despite evidence of the effects of structural gendered household dynamics and divisions of labour, ‘work’ is still largely viewed as economic activity from traditional masculinized perspectives. Thus, analysing how gender is enacted within EHs, and how it influences resource flows between members subject to gendered power hierarchies, is critical, primarily because it recognizes and renders visible those who appear unconnected to entrepreneurial activities. In the following section, we argue that Glucksmann’s Total Social Organization of Labour theory can support analysis of such gendered household dynamics and their role in sustaining or constraining both the businesses and the resources available to different household members.

Total social organization of labour

Glucksmann’s (1995, 2000, 2005) Total Organization of Labour (TSOL), identifies and challenges gendered divisions of labour in households. She counters the undervaluing of women, and their contribution to social well-being, by reforming ‘work’ to highlight the significance of household and domestic work. She questions the analytical privilege accorded to waged (typically male) employment (Waring 1999), critiquing the binary of work and home, emphasizing the entangled personal and relational aspects of household and domestic work (Himmelweit 1995). As illustrated in Figure 1 (below), we argue that TSOL supports gendered analyses of EHs, where household members negotiate gendered resources as performative relational processes (Glucksmann 2005; Marlow and Dy 2018), and where household members, men and women, are embroiled in gendered household dynamics and resultant labour practices. This also includes members formally employed outside the household and/or household members with no interest in the business but who are pressured to help because of assumed familial responsibility (Jayawarna, Marlow and Swail 2020; Meliou and Edwards 2018).

Figure 1. Total Social Organization of Labour (TSOL) framework, adapted from Glucksmann (1995) and Taylor (2004).

We use the TSOL framework above to analyse gendered household dynamics of EHs, recognizing work as a multifarious array of labour practices, inseparable from personal and household relations. In brief, TSOL is defined as prisms of work: first, processes involve production, distribution, exchange and consumption of resources; second, they straddle boundaries between public and private; third, between conceptualization of markets and non-markets (what is understood as work and what is not); and finally, work-time dimensions (Glucksmann 2005). We identify informal work as unregistered, ‘hidden/invisible/grey’ labour practices (e.g. cash-in-hand, favour exchanges), and formal work as registered and regulated labour practices in either public or private spheres (Williams and Onoschenko 2014). Noting this, it is vital to adopt an inclusive approach to work as all labour activity, since it is undertaken within a wide variety of socio-economic relations. It is also important to recognize that work does not fit the binary of paid public work vs unpaid private work, but is intertwined (Taylor 2004; Venter 2022).

Viewed from a gendered household dynamics perspective, business work and household work within EHs are interrelated and simultaneous, rather than separate and oppositional. When mapped onto the TSOL framework above, formal/informal and public/private work is situated along a continuum on the horizontal axis, divided into paid work (top) and unpaid work (bottom). Paid work may be informal if unregistered, with no employment contract, e.g. where informal household labour helps sustain the EH. Informal and irregular employment is an important feature in EHs, and TSOL analysis reveals how such work is produced and consumed, and the consequences of gendered divisions of labour (Glucksmann 2005). Similarly, in EHs blurred boundaries between household values and business work can obfuscate labour abuses and inequalities (Rossman 2014), particularly for women who honour ‘familiness’, family values and care (Jayawarna, Marlow and Swail 2020). Work is therefore, recognized as simultaneous (rather than binary) forms of labour, with the framework capturing unpaid and informal work activities in the private and public spheres. For example, unpaid work for a business or charity is formal (and similar to employment) if it involves processes of selection, monitoring and appraisal (Taylor 2004), but gendered household dynamics mean the likelihood of women taking up this option is higher compared to men (Parry, Brookfield and Bolton 2021).

The TSOL framework is, therefore, an important analytical lens to examine gendered household dynamics, as it recognizes business and household work as relational processes, negotiated between a range of different agents. This view enables us to consider women’s contextualized place, emphasizing the gendered distribution and production of labour in EHs. We now turn to our methodology, analysing five EH case studies based in the United Kingdom.

Methodology

Case studies of five EHs, each with a household member trading as self-employed (e.g. home and/or mobile trade), were undertaken in Liverpool (North-West, England), one of the UK’s largest cities (ONS 2018). Cases were theoretically sampled to meet Carter et al’.s (2017) criteria of an EH, i.e. households where a household member has started a business, with businesses ranging from start-up and early-stage, to more established. This supports the analysis of the household and the day-to-day activities that help EHs survive (Stafford et al. 1999), while the TSOL framework captures the complexities of family systems and gendered dynamics within EHs. In total, there were 17 participants (see Table 1, below). Fifteen were interviewed across the five case studies, but Pete (EH-2) and Vicky (EH-5) were observed with permission (not formally interviewed). Semi-structured interviews were conducted separately with four couples from EHs 1–4, one couple interviewed jointly (EH-5) at the participants’ request. Initial interviews were with the formally registered business owner, followed by interviews with their spouse/partner. In EH-2, children, daughters-in-law and a non-family household member were also interviewed, as they provided formal and informal business work, and informal household work. The interviews enabled informants to tell stories of their EH in their own terms, using a thematic interview protocol covering business activities, motivations for business start-up, household needs and daily routines and formal and informal forms of work in the households. Interviews were recorded and transcribed by the first author.

Table 1. Entrepreneurial household cases and informants.

Informants from each case (gender, age and role)	Household Income	Business industry sector	Years in operation	Living arrangement/Marital status	Children (age <18)
Entrepreneurial Household 1 Brenda (F, 60s Registered business owner) Riley (M, 60s, husband)	Two-income household	Product trade	1–5	Own private property Married	None
Entrepreneurial Household 2 James (M, 50s, Registered business owner) Sharon (F, 50s, wife) Mark (M, 30s, son) Pete (M, 30s, son) Haz (F, 20s, daughter) Diene (F, 20s, daughter-in-law) Jazz (F, 20s, daughter-in-law) Leigh (F, 30s, friend/lodger)	Multiple-income household	Building and construction, church, nursery, resource-centre	20–25	Joint mortgage Married Children have married and moved-out of the home.	None
Entrepreneurial Household 3 Troy (M, 40s, Registered business owner) Irene (F, 20s, wife)	Single-income household	IT consultancy	1–4	Shared rented flat Recently married	1
Entrepreneurial Household 4 Ronaldo (M, 30s, Registered business owner) Jasmine (F, 40s, wife)	Two-income household	Building and construction	10–15	Joint mortgage Married	2
Entrepreneurial Household 5 Faye (F, 20s, Registered business owner) Nile (M, 20s, partner) Vicky (F, 50s, Faye’s mother)	Two-income household	Mobile Hairdresser	1–5	Joint mortgage Never married Faye moved-out of home and live with Nile and children	2

Interviews were carried out at the business premises, and the researcher had the opportunity to explore working environments, allowing for informal follow-up conversations and supplementary questions. In one case (EH-2), observations were carried out at the church premises, where the registered business owner gave a tour of the resource-centre and nursery and introduced his family and volunteers. In EH-2, one man was the registered owner of several businesses, which are well established. His children and their partners were subsequently interviewed, as they had been involved in various roles as the businesses were established over time and offered insights into the household dynamics they had witnessed. Where available, business web pages, flyers and reports were searched to obtain further information. Ethical considerations were ensured by following the first author’s institutional ethical approval processes, with all personal details, places and products anonymized, and pseudonyms used.

The research design was abductive, involving ‘systematic combination of induction and deduction’ in an integrated case study approach (Dubois and Gadde 2002, 555; see also Alacovska 2018 similar approach), where theories were abstracted to build a comparative analysis of the multiple EH cases. Interviews and phase one of data analysis were conducted by the first author, with phase two data analysis conducted by first and second authors. In phase one, the first author read the transcripts, identifying themes and categories. Next, theory was developed through a systematic combination of thematic inference (Braun and Clarke 2006) with the first author’s own reflexive accounts. This developed new themes and categories, with new insights emerging through mapping the TSOL framework and considering the household gendered dynamics literature. Data were organized by (i) systematizing data in tables, comparing each case according to empirical themes and (ii) writing each case as a narrative; to build an in-depth qualitative exploration and thick description of phenomena (Yin 1994).

In Phase two, both authors worked back and forth between categories, charting fluid overlaps of multifarious (formal/informal, paid/unpaid) labour practices, using TSOL, while paying attention to new insights and relations outside of the TSOL framing. Following Williams and Onoschenko (2014), household work and business economic activities were treated as an array, along two cross-cutting spectra: first, along a spectrum from relatively formal to more informal labour practices; and second, along a spectrum from wholly unpaid through to wholly paid labour practices. Next, we mapped organization of household work as simultaneous with economic business work. This thorough back and forth work strengthened the study’s reliability, resulting in three main themes. The following section presents the results of our analysis and different analytical perspectives on our cases to reveal the different juxtapositions and disadvantages between multiple voices of EH and their experiences of gendered household dynamics.

Findings

What follows are three analytical perspectives on our cases and data. First, we present short contextualized narrative cases, using the household as a unit of analysis, to illustrate how gendered household dynamics and relations exist and change over time. Second, we dig deeper, presenting thematically and analytically informed individual narratives, outlining the gendered organization of labour within these EHs. We offer a summary of examples related to key themes in Table 2 and examples of direct quotes related to sub-themes and key themes in Appendix A to highlight the resulting array and dynamics of formal and informal work within each household from multiple voices. It is worth highlighting that although the examples are organized according to key themes and sub-themes, they are in fact interrelated to each other rather than discrete. Our focus on gendered dynamics between those living and working in EHs makes it important to consider the combination of individuals, household and business. In analysing EHs, we consider all household members, and their relationships to each other and to business/es based there.

Table 2. Summary of examples related to key themes.

Entrepreneurial Households	Embedded normativity in entrepreneurial household	Uncertainty of interrelationships between household and work	Issues of invisibility and resource access
EH-1 Brenda and Riley	Brenda described herself as ‘not your typical entrepreneur’. She faced gendered discrimination from male individuals at work and home, stopping her progressing her career.	Brenda is main carer for ill mother; sole responsibility for business, sustained by her unpaid care work. She never accessed state support, sick leave or carers benefits, but worked long hours to compensate for financial loss.	Brenda’s family provides little support. They see it as ‘silly idea, a hobby’. Her low wages and unemployment after childbirth meant lower retirement pension fund (and business funds) than Riley. Brenda experienced ‘more challenges and disadvantages different to men’ most of her working life.
EH-2 James, Sharon, Mark, Diene, Leigh, Jazz, Haz and Pete	Couple agree James is the entrepreneur, risk-taker and breadwinner, while Sharon remained a housewife and main carer of their children most of her working life. Their children and other members of EH also recognize James as a ‘businessman’. Informal work and voluntary work for the church is ‘different to the business’, not seen as profitable, but is critical for the EHs sustainability.	Sharon worked, unpaid and informally, for James after childbirth. Most of her time is spent helping James, housework and voluntary work in church, resource-centre and nursery. Formal and informal work of all household members ‘goes back to the church’ making businesses one-entity (i.e. all businesses go through the church as charity. But issue is uncertainty about women’s role, legitimacy and reward. For example, Sharon sees herself as ‘follower and James as leader’, their children see her work as ‘behind the scenes’ and none were able to give a clear definition of Sharon’s actual role.	Sharon cannot access bank-account as it is James’ name, making her dependent on James. Sharon did not finish accounting qualification because of housewife role, childcare and informal work for businesses. Family and care mixed with kinship, influences how work is valued in EH. Sharon feels her informal, unpaid, voluntary work is ‘shrugged off’ and devalued, as less significant compared to James’ economic role.
EH-3 Troy and Irene	Troy is seen as lone businessman and risk-taker, despite Irene supporting him throughout. Irene does most of administration, and customer services for Troy, but this is unpaid. Her help is expected as ‘wifely’ responsibility. Emotional labour and guilt forced Irene to perform informal unpaid work against her will.	No clarity of Irene’s role. The pressure of the relationship, and becoming ‘one person and sharing lives together’ automatically meant business became both their responsibility ‘because it’s within the home’. Irene’s opinion is devalued and dismissed, as she has no formal role and the ‘things she says gets pushed to the bottom’.	Troy sees Irene’s help as distracting, even though this is Irene’s form of necessary reproductive care. Suggestions of breaks are dismissed by Troy, making Irene feel ‘resentful, misunderstood and guilty’.
EH-4 Ronaldo and Jasmine	Ronaldo is sole owner of his joinery business. Jasmine, employed full-time nurse supports him informally and unpaid.	Jasmine and Ronaldo share childcare, but Jasmine is main carer. A nurse, Jasmine is over-worked, having to ask friends for help in exchange for favours. They attend a Filipino church and does regular voluntary work, helping maintain their social networks, relationships with subcontractors and potential customers.	Unstable income from Ronaldo’s business, required Jasmine to stay in full-time work and ‘pick-up bank work’ to supplement household income. Jasmine’s employment status enabled Ronaldo to access loans to grow business, but often it is Ronaldo’s work ethic, bravery and heroic endeavour that is recognized by others. Voluntary and unpaid work means Jasmine is time-poor and ‘always has more on her plate’ than Ronaldo.
EH-5 Faye, Nile and Vicky	Faye performs both formal and informal work for her business and home. Her ‘customers are mostly women’. Faye is main carer of her children, whereas Nile does some domestic work but is not involved in the business.	Faye’s mobile business helps with working from home and childcare, but she often solicits Vicky’s support, rather than Nile’s.	Faye does not have time and money to upskill or employ others. Her low qualification and lack of self-belief stopped her pursuing further education. Nile is often away for work, ‘away from the chaos at home’ and ensures ‘food on the table’. Child rearing and domestic work is Faye’s role and any childcare Nile does is seen as more significant, rare and praised.

Narrative case presentations of each entrepreneurial household

Each case is presented, providing context and illustrating how household dynamics have changed and adapted over time, and in response to the emergence of, and the need to sustain, both the business/es based there and the household. They are identified as Entrepreneurial Household 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 for ease of presentation)

Entrepreneurial household 1: Brenda and Riley

Brenda is a registered business-owner, selling hearing-aid accessories for 2 years. She started it whilst caring for her elderly mother. Now retired, she runs her business around her domestic responsibilities. Prior to business-ownership, she worked part-time as a bank receptionist, but later left to care for her children full time. At the time of interview, her husband, Riley, was a full-time engineer and the household’s main breadwinner, with no involvement in the business. Their adult children had moved out and do not support the household or business.

Brenda has no employees and receives little income from the business or pensions because she never had long-term employment. In contrast, Riley has a generous pension fund. Managing her business alone is isolating, due to the lack of support and having to still be the household’s main carer/domestic worker. Her ethos of self-sufficiency is tempered by a need to be economically active due to her continuing precarious position, simultaneously providing care for her sick mother and with sole responsibility for running the household and business, while being economically dependent on Riley.

Entrepreneurial household 2: James, Sharon, Mark, Diene, Leigh, Jazz, Haz and Pete

James is the registered owner of several businesses and is married to his American wife, Sharon. Prior to setting up his current business, James started a building business in America, while they had their children: Mark (eldest), Pete (second) and Haz (youngest). During this time, James also became a church minister. In contrast, Sharon worked in accounts for a number of years, but never finished her accounting qualification, instead, transitioning to being a stay-at-home mum. Sharon is not formally employed by James’ business, but provides informal unpaid labour, helping with tax-returns and managing accounts.

When the family migrated to England during 2002 (James’s birthplace), James became a church pastor and set up a construction company, while Sharon was officially unemployed, but continued to informally support James’ businesses. At the time of the interview, James and Sharon lives in the same household, their three children had married and moved out during between 2015 and 2016. However, while living in the household, Mark and Pete worked informally with James on building sites, getting paid through favour-exchange or cash-in-hand. In 2010, while all three children were still living in the household, James started community-based businesses which are the nursery and a resource-centre (next to the church) where Sharon and their children also volunteered, formally and unpaid. Leigh, an unrelated close family-friend, has lodged with James and Sharon for a number of years, and is described as their ‘adopted child’, and helps manage the church and resource-centre. Leigh receives payments from James to cover her expenses (as opposed to wages), but her provisioning work is entangled with meaningful interpersonal connections (friendship, care and love) driven by her Christian faith. Their daughter-in-law, Jazz (Pete’s wife) and Diene (Mark’s wife), do not live in the same household as James and Sharon, but are closely involved in the church, working in the nursery, Jazz as a formally employed teacher, and Diene as an unpaid volunteer cook and care-assistant.

There is interconnection between the construction business, church, nursery, resource-centre and household, as James uses his business profits and other household members' skills for their development. His children, daughters-in-law, Sharon and Leigh provide informal help, giving up time to manage different enterprises he formally runs. All those interviewed agree that the enterprises are one entity, owned and managed by James, where any income the household makes from all enterprises ‘goes back to the church’, a way to help the community and sustain the household and business.

Entrepreneurial household 3 – Troy and Irene

Troy is the registered business-owner of a music app, established after he migrated from Turkey, to be with his partner Irene. At the time of interview, Irene was studying part-time while managing Troy’s business tax receipts, customer service and emotional support, informally and unpaid. The couple has a child and lives together in a rented apartment. The app business alone does not generate sufficient household income, so Troy also does temporary freelance work. While Troy claims to be the breadwinner, the couple often use Irene’s scholarship money and student loan to cover household expenses.

Their financial struggles cause tension, stress and anxiety, prompting conflict and concern from other family members. Low income and the lack of structure and legitimacy of the business have put pressure on Irene because of her precarious position as an informal, unpaid member of the EH (unemployed, part-time student and full-time carer for her child). Irene provides informal unpaid labour for the business, not through choice, but because of her duty of care as mother and partner, which simultaneously requires her to satisfy business and household needs.

Entrepreneurial household 4 – Ronaldo and Jasmine

Ronaldo is the registered business-owner of a joinery business, established after migrating from the Philippines to join his wife, Jasmine (a full-time nurse), who also migrated from the Philippines. They have two children, both born in England. Ronaldo runs his business as a sole trader and pays subcontractors cash-in-hand for ad-hoc work. Before his move to England, Jasmine had to ensure Ronaldo’s employment by finding him informal paid work as a joiner, until he gained experience to start his own business. Savings from informal work and Jasmine’s salary enabled them to formally register his business. However, their household income is sporadic, due to the seasonal nature of Ronaldo’s business and having to send money to the Philippines, meaning Jasmine has to supplement her nursing work, doing bank work in care homes.

Ronaldo and Jasmine have close links with the Filipino church community, which generates subcontractors and clients. The intangible labour Jasmine provides, through social, relational and emotional support, creates opportunities for the business to expand, but this requires unpaid, informal work for the EH and formal employment outside the home, driven by her household responsibility and the business needs.

Entrepreneurial household 5 – Faye, Nile and Vicky

Faye is the registered owner of a mobile hairdressing business, and her partner Nile is not involved in the business. Prior to ownership, Faye finished college with hairdressing qualifications and did apprenticeships, work-shadowing and worked zero-hour contracts for money and experience. Nile is a social worker, working long hours, but this intersperses with extended periods of unemployment. Faye started her business primarily to provide a more consistent household income. Neither Faye nor Nile drives, so Faye either walks to clients or her mother, Vicky, drives her in exchange for favours. Faye worked throughout her pregnancy, starting maternity leave 2 weeks before her due date. Since giving birth, Faye continues the business from home, enabling her to care for children, Nile continues with his employment and Vicky continues to provide unpaid, informal labour in lieu of Nile’s lack of support.

Narrative of each EH above demonstrates interrelated, hybrid and continuously overlapping labour practices, each of which has a variety of labour and differing levels of time allocated to each practice. These labour practices are underpinned by relational and gendered household dynamics. Firstly, there is paid work in private, public and household settings, but an ongoing blurring of the boundaries of these spheres is occurring, with most male business owners in formal paid work in masculinized sectors such as construction and tech (example: James, Ronaldo, Troy). Women are also engaged in paid formal work outside the household (example, Jasmine an employed nurse). However, their time is also spent in informal work for the household, and the ongoing blurring of the formal spheres with the informal renders their work invisible, such that the unpaid work that most women in this study engage in is not equally recognized or rewarded. Where women are registered business owners, they get no support from male household members other, than the economic support provided by their formal work outside the household.

Analytical themes

Thematic analysis highlights the organization of labour practices, providing nuanced accounts of complex gendered household dynamics and interconnections between the household and the business. The first theme centres on embedded normativity in entrepreneurial households, seen in the ideology of normative entrepreneurship. The second theme focuses on uncertainty of interrelationships between household and work, highlighting the obscure relationship between gendered household dynamics and household role expectations. The third theme focuses on issues of invisibility and resource access, with unpaid informal work such as care work disadvantaging actively disadvantaging women within EHs. We end the following section with a summary of the analytical themes and evidence from the cases (see Table 2 for summary of examples related to key themes and Appendix A for examples of direct quotes related to subthemes and key themes).

Embedded normativity in entrepreneurial households

Venture creation is traditionally regarded as a process of normative entrepreneurial action by an individual, based on opportunity recognition (Goffee and Scase 1995), and discussions with household members, both men and women, reiterates the importance of these factors. However, in analysing households, rather than individual entrepreneurs or businesses, it became apparent that household relational changes, as experienced by women, are not regarded as influencing entrepreneurial action. Instead, entrepreneurial opportunities, outcomes and successes of men are privileged. Therefore, the influence of gendered household dynamics is neutralized, by perceptions that entrepreneurial success involves risk-taking and profit maximization by an individual. This is despite the fact that, in all cases, businesses emerged to support changing household needs, such as the birth of children.

For EH-2 establishing a business was necessary to support their children, making it important for all household members to access and provide tangible and intangible household resources. Yet, James is sole proprietor, despite Sharon’s central role providing material support, resources and labour, such that her informal unpaid household resources form a common pool that is accessible when necessary. In all cases, emotional and relational capital informs behaviours of household members, serving to keep them close to the business (Renzulli, Aldrich and Moody 2000). Women’s informal unpaid work to support the household work is also influenced by their role as mothers and wives, kinship, nepotism and family values (Aldrich and Cliff 2003). In EH-1, Brenda started her business, whilst providing full-time care for her ill mother, as an opportunity and a fulfilment of her domestic and caring roles. Although she embodies entrepreneurialism, her perception of a ‘typical’ entrepreneur echoes normative assumptions of entrepreneurial masculinity, ‘businessmen, private suppliers sort of marketing people’. Furthermore, Brenda fulfils ‘work’ and ‘domestic’ roles but has dilemmas juggling these with no household member support. While this enables her to mitigate the effects of changes in her business and household role, it blurs the boundaries between household work and business work, masking work practices within the EH. Similarly, her previous redundancy from, and limited progression in, past employment is influenced by gender discrimination, and gendered ideological traditions, which necessitated the setting up of her business. However, she re-narrates a sense of autonomy and improvisation, to gain flexibility and, importantly, to fulfil her caring responsibilities for children and parents. Merging of her household and business responsibilities shows that, although she found a market ‘need’ for her services, her transitioning towards entrepreneurship was not only influenced by her previous career trajectory, her marriage, her children and domestic responsibility, but also by unfair assumptions held by male members of her family on gendered household dynamics and previous employment as ‘they don’t waste money on women… they think that all women do is get married and have babies … ’ (Brenda, EH-1). Experiences of structural social inequalities therefore, encouraged Brenda to choose entrepreneurship as a means of income generation due to workplace discrimination, gendered stigma and expectations attached to women, limited options and prolonged non-economic activity. In Sharon (EH-2) and Irene’s (EH-3) cases, they both have skills to re-enter the formal labour market but perform unpaid and undervalued work within the EH instead, not by choice, but because of motherhood, and the presumed promise of flexibility of having partners who are business owners.

Faye’s (EH-5) hairdressing business in a low-income, highly competitive and feminized sector shapes her approach to accessing household resources. With Nile often away for work, she relies on her mother (Vicky) for transport and childcare. Her experience is similar to self-employed women generally, who are overrepresented in low-growth, feminized sectors (Marlow and McAdam 2013), resulting in a lack of savings, business knowledge and access to relevant social networks. Simultaneously, gendered household dynamics continues into the business, as she was expected to continue to work and not take maternity leave during pregnancy or post-birth, despite difficulties in health and fulfilling client demands. In EH-3, Irene suggests a sense of precarity, struggling to juggle her role as informal unpaid worker for Troy, performing essential labour practices which are atypical, uncontracted and lack benefits accruing to formal employment, which she initially planned to pursue before childbirth. Clearly, women are continuously trusted and expected to do this type of work. All women respondents provide insights into the limitations of a binary approach to work: for home vs business. EH members daily engage in a range of formal and informal labour practices, incompatible with existing definitions of formality and informality. In doing so, they transform labour practices into gendered practices, whereby informal, interpersonal efforts of attending to meaningful social relations become the basis for accomplishment of economic activities, resulting in women doing mundane, relational, interpersonal, kinship and non-economic labour (Alacovska 2018). Women’s care – a mundane, simultaneous work – and ‘non-work’ activity is undertaken for love and money (Glucksmann 2005); embedded in relationships (affection, duty, obligation) and varying according to socio-economic conditions. The dominant perspective of formal vs informal work overlooks such gendered divisions of labour, linking to gendered household dynamics and women’s continuing unequal position in the organization of household labour.

Uncertain interrelationships between household and work

It is evident that the presence of women affords certain resources and forms of work within the household. Interrelationships between the business and household are evident, but never clearly understood or acknowledged, due to a high degree of uncertainty between what household members understand as work for business vs. work for home, as well as structural gender inequalities embedded within different forms of work. The (re)productive work women perform is often an everyday activity, becoming routinized and even described as ‘boring’. Thus, mundane expectations mask how risk, and control over gendered divisions of labour, is performed, rendering women’s labour ‘trivial’. In EH-2 and 3, the couples co-run the business as each other’s support system, but men’s formal role (as registered business owner) is more visible, while women’s roles are devalued and taken-for-granted. Both Sharon’s (EH-2) and Irene’s (EH-3) individual work, and contribution to the business and home, is challenging to distinguish, and unequally recognized. Significantly, when we highlight invisible, informal unpaid labour, such as emotional, domestic and voluntary work (Daniels 1987), it magnifies how gendered dynamics of household relations intertwine and directly impact businesses, with the gendering of entrepreneurship and the valorizing of the male business owners, in turn affecting the visibility of women in the household. This is also the case for the formal women business owners (Brenda and Faye) and those formally employed outside the household (Jasmine) – as their male partners are positioned as the main breadwinners, illustrating how the men’s gendered household positions lead to women household members being marginalized (even when women are the registered owners of businesses).

Our analysis shows the household and domestic sphere cannot be conceptualized as disconnected from the business, which brings forth personal relations with family members and close social contacts, such as relatives and close neighbours. The types of work undertaken by individual household members, and their daily routines, determines necessary unpaid care work for biological reproduction and human labour is still primarily performed by women, creating difficulties in accessing social security, such as pension credits or working tax credits, etc. For example, after Faye’s second child, she reduced her hours in the business to balance childcare with work. She could not afford to take a break from hairdressing, as she had to keep up with client demands and contribute to the household. However, Faye, like Brenda (EH-1), lacks knowledge about health and social insurance, pensions or maternity leave support; arguably highlighting underinvestment in policies to redress women’s socio-economic disadvantage resulting from unpaid care responsibilities.

Likewise, Sharon (EH-2) and Irene (EH-3), who do not have formal roles in the business, are unaware of any support available for them as unregistered informal workers, nor do they see themselves as legitimately able to access such support. For example, Irene also did not have time or support to recover from childbirth, as she was soon back working for the business:

You don’t want to be the person that’s hampering their project, that’s my fear and that’s why I do it … even though there is lack of support I continued to help him out even after giving birth (Irene)

This unequal burden of women’s unpaid work has significant implications for the type and quality of opportunities for these women, who are time poor, and is complicated by the interrelationship of the household and business. Patriarchal family structures, therefore, push domestic labour onto women, confining them to poorly remunerated, unpaid and informal work, or excluding them from the labour market altogether. Several other factors inhibit women’s labour market participation, including increasing domestic demands as the family grows/changes, occupational segregation and wage differentiation. Here, we find that these factors rest on the invisibility of household work and resource access for the EH’s survival.

Issues of invisibility and resource access

Critical analysis of the household as a resource for entrepreneurial activity suggests it is not a neutral space but premised on ideologically driven expectations of the home as a stereotypically gendered responsibility. This is underpinned by social ascriptions of gender and socio-economic standing, which in turn relate to structural gender inequality and resource constraint.

In EH-2, when asked about Sharon’s role in the business, James’ reply echoes other male respondents, whose partners perform crucial work for the business, which is not formally recognized or paid, despite being critical to its sustainability. James calls Sharon’s work ‘casual help’, as she is not formally employed, has no contract, nor does she have appropriate formal qualifications. Although James’s response is all too familiar, he does not have a clear idea of his wife’s role or plan to ever employ her formally. Instead, he is comfortable in conversing about his wife ‘helping’ as a form of voluntary, provisioned or favour-exchange, even though she spends a lot of time working in the business, church, nursery and resource-centre. Likewise, his son, Mark, does not recognize Sharon’s informal work as a form of business activity, or economic exchange, describing them as hybridized form of work, combining domestic work, household roles and care. This highlights the difficulty of understanding the private/domestic sphere, especially in EHs, and misconceptions that women’s work is seen mainly as reproductive work.

Women who work informally and unpaid rely mostly on their spouse (often the male proprietor who takes formal-paid, full-time self-employment or employment, to control their hours of work). Furthermore, these women access voluntary work from other women, who in turn, provide unpaid and informal help with household work, which is crucial for business survival. Sharon’s family describes her as ‘grafter’, ‘Pastor’s wife’ and ‘James’s right-hand’, performing critical activities in the business decision-making. However, devaluing of her work is synchronic to the ideal home, carer and mother, regardless of the fact she worked casual jobs, while juggling studies and childcare, had previously worked in an accounting firm while juggling housework and voluntary work, and at time of interview had also worked (unpaid) for her husband’s business most of her working life (approximately 25 years). The fact that these women provide informal, unpaid, uncontracted, temporary and voluntary work masks their skills behind the scenes, rather than being recognized as formal employment, effectively rendering them ‘careerless’, despite many years of work experience.

Discussion: structural inequality in the gendered division of household labour

Examining gendered household dynamics through a TSOL lens allows us to delineate various types of labour – paid and unpaid, formal and informal – within the household sphere, illustrating that individuals’ work trajectories do not necessarily conform to conventional notions of starting at a certain age and ending at retirement. This perspective also reveals how different types of labour, such as work for a business and household domestic tasks, intersect and intertwine with existing gender roles. Structural inequalities in the division of household labour are apparent in women’s roles in household work and informal economic activities within households. Despite their significance for business survival and sustainability, these aspects remain relatively unexplored in broader literature (Small 2023). We propose that prevailing conceptualizations of work relations are questionable, a viewpoint shared by feminist scholars who argue that different forms of work have been treated as unproblematic, yet are deeply embedded in specific gendered assumptions with distinct consequences for women.

Indeed, we show that when a business is owned by a man, women household members are expected to provide labour, although they are not employees and/or they have other jobs/careers. When a business in the household is owned by a woman, the men in the household offer no support. We argue that this is due to gendered assumptions of the importance of the business in contributing to the household’s income and the undervaluing of women’s time, with such work being seen as a woman’s obligation to the household, in a way that men’s is not. The only obligation that men in these households seem to have is to bring in an income (and even that is sometimes supplemented by women’s formal work outside the household).

Our study subsequently helps us emphasize the importance of women’s work (both inside and outside the household) to the sustainability of the business and challenges the assumption that men’s business success is solely due to the efforts of the registered business owner. Likewise, in these cases, the business owned by women is sustained solely by the efforts of the women business owners themselves, as other household members (partners and children) do not take their businesses seriously and/or do not consider it their responsibility to offer formal or informal support for the business. This potentially inhibits the sustainability and growth of women-owned businesses ‘such that exhausted women will adopt a more conservative entrepreneurial orientation’ (Mustafa and Treanor 2022, 219).

An emphasis on individualism and the prioritization of formal, paid employment contribute to the invisibility of certain entrepreneurial activities and actors. This approach neutralizes structural inequalities and assumes a level playing field for everyone (Nadin, Smith and Jones 2020). Such constraints may partially account for why self-employed women in these households tend to have home-based businesses and are concentrated in lower-quality, lower-paid service sectors (Marlow and McAdam 2013). Taking a broader perspective on labour organization, such as those provided by TSOL, also helps in comprehending why numerous women in formal self-employment fail to earn the minimum hourly wage, leading to a substantial earnings gap between self-employed women and their male counterparts (Leoni and Falk 2010), as well as between self-employed and employed women (ONS 2018).

We suggest our contribution is in highlighting this potential double standard and the negative effects it can have on women in entrepreneurial households, when they are the registered business owner, or informally support the businesses owned by men in the household. Indeed, this empirically illustrates women’s position as an untapped economic household resource and ‘a reserve army of labour’ (Owen 2020, 17). Such gendered household dynamics have the potential not only to inhibit women’s businesses but also to damage the career options and prospects of women who are expected to support the household through informal support, which is entangled with their assumed domestic and familial responsibilities. This work is invisible, often unpaid and not recognized as work, but as part of their assumed caring and supportive household role.

Gendered divisions of labour in the formal and informal work spheres affect the sphere of household work for production, such that women’s various patterns of discontinuous availability are socially structured by their dual location in two spheres. By the same token, men’s presumed single location, in formal work, informs patterns of their continuous availability for paid work. That said, women are increasingly expected to be continuously available in both formal and informal work spheres. Such differences in the conditions under which women workers ‘sell’ their labour power constitute a major source of differential gender relations. The gendered division of labour also operates as a central organizing principle, systematically dividing EHs based on gender relations, particularly in usage and exchange of labour power. Thus, in our gendered household dynamics and TSOL analysis, EHs are constrained and assigned a gendered position based on household needs and men’s place in the occupational hierarchy (i.e. whether they run a business or have formal employment outside the home).

Our findings ultimately emphasize the interrelationship and blurred boundaries of precarious forms of economic activity in household work, and its relationship to unpaid informal work. Evidently, systemic inequality exists, as EHs are not unified neutral spaces, but are unequal and diverse, as complex inequalities endure where some household members are better equipped to take advantage of the resource privilege that entrepreneurship offers. The ideological force of normative masculinity, and its influence on routinized and time-consuming gendered divisions of labour (Acker 2006), enduringly persists. Unequally positioned, women’s household labour resource, as mothers, wives, partners, daughters and even lodgers, continues to be packaged as a primary biological toolkit for family care and everyday life provisions. However, because women’s labour is seen as continuously untapped – an ever accessible, but unpaid, unmerited and devalued resource – the entrepreneurship literature obscures their time and worth, despite its undeniable influence on their own household, on other households and their overall contribution to entrepreneurship, valorizing instead the tangible, calculable and economic.

Research implications and contributions

Our research revisits, magnifies and brings to light the proliferation of gendered inequality regimes (Acker 2006); identifying mechanisms that produce and reproduce structural and systemic inequality within the EH setting. Importantly, it renders visible inequality in informal unpaid household work by women with no formal career, and non-standard labour contracts, which can be exploitative (Alacovska 2018). Our theoretical and empirical analysis reveals that the traditional upward trajectory of full-time, lifelong employment renders many women in EHs ‘careerless’, as they struggle to construct ‘career’ and work histories. Despite the existence of a ‘domestic and homemaker career’, problems remain of paid employment constituting the only valued type of ‘work’. Therefore, household work and domestic labour, childcare, elderly care and voluntary work are signified as ‘not working’ but a ‘self-sufficient responsibility’, ‘commitment’ and a ‘supplement’ to business economic work, which is given biased objective weight by others, or is self-imposed. This is problematic for future entrepreneurship research and practice, as in times of global, national and household crisis, there is a risk of reproducing structural regimes for disadvantaged, marginalized women.

In problematizing traditional work perspectives, we argue for further analysis of how invisible household work, and informal unpaid work of women are experienced in EHs. This is especially important where their work remains obscured, due to blurred interdependencies and interconnections between different forms of relational labour such as immigration status and intersectional positionality (Dy, Marlow, and Martin 2016). Although it has its advantages, one limitation of this study is our focus on a specific regional context, thus further research is needed to explore other national and international contexts.

This debate also prompts a number of policy implications. We acknowledge, in the light of COVID-19 global pandemic, that who lives and dies is shaped by socioeconomic factors, including austerity measures, the current cost-of-living crisis and their impact on household labour. From a household perspective, household work will clearly be affected, with households facing challenging decisions, especially with women’s overrepresentation in low-paid caring, domestic and feminized sectors. We highlight the importance of understanding how pre-existing discrimination, based on gender in work, is exacerbated, particularly in informal sectors (Venter 2022; Alacovska 2018). However, such data are rarely available from low-income households, further entrenching the invisibility of marginalized women’s labour.

Conclusion

The analysis of EHs using TSOL highlights the central role marginalized labour practices can play in women’s work histories and that the issue of whose work is remunerated is shaped by gendered household dynamics and, as such, the structure of particular markets. We subsequently offer new insights into gendered household dynamics in EHs and argue that privileging the normative, atomized entrepreneur/business owner risks partial explanation of the organization of labour, disadvantaging women, resulting in exploitation and limited access to resources inside and outside the household. It also disguises the differences in how labour is organized in EHs, which can depend upon whether the business owner is a man or a woman. We, therefore, suggest that future studies employing TSOL to analyse gendered household dynamics, and access to relational resources for sustainable ventures, could better help us design more equitable and inclusive policies to support EHs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author [Baloyo, MJ] upon reasonable request.

Appendix A:

Examples of direct quotes related to sub-themes and key themes

Table

Key themes	Embedded normativity in entrepreneurial household	Uncertainty of interrelationships between household and work	Issues of invisibility and resource access
Sub themes	Ideology of normative entrepreneurship, roles and forms of work	Ambiguity, tensions, gendered household dynamics and relationality	Human, financial, emotional and relational resources, Femininity and masculinity, barriers and challenges
EH-1 Brenda and Riley	I run the business all on my own … I started it as a necessity … because of my mum who is now 90 and has dementia … I was her main carer” (Brenda) I suppose I can describe myself as an entrepreneur, a one-man band but that’s only out of necessity on a personal level … I’m an entrepreneur because it is something new … a business that could thrive the fact that we have an ageing population the need is going to be there … but I’m not your typical entrepreneur … Typical entrepreneur would be your businessmen, private suppliers sort of marketing people, but that would cost me to join an organization to seek the advice so I said I don’t have that money (Brenda) No, I have nothing to do with her business, she is always on her laptop and I’m never usually home. I’ve been an engineer for years and stayed that way since (Riley)	My mum inspired me to do it because I could see the need … I fulfilled the aspiration to do it and keep her quality of life … I could be out there doing my garden which I’ve neglected … (Brenda) There was no care for mum and her quality of life because if you put somebody into care that’s a big decision and you’re acknowledging that you don’t care for them, but she was becoming out of my hands (Brenda)	I would step-back and let somebody else move forward with it … I haven’t got the skills and expertise, marketing, innovation and development … I’m not really into computer and all process has been time consuming and I don’t have the time (Brenda) No one sees what I do, my family are doing their independent thing and I’m doing my own thing … No one in the family wants to take-over the business, they say ‘oh what is nan up to now’ … They see it as silly idea, a hobby. My husband doesn’t want to bother with it either, he has his expensive hobby to do with planes (Brenda) I could never progress in my job in the bank … the mentality was you work for a few years and the employer says oh you can’t progress. I went into the bank and wanted to learn more but they said they don’t waste money on women and only what women do is get married and have babies … but I’ve always wanted to be a nurse, but my dad said, ‘you don’t want to be a nurse you’ll end up with bed pans … ’ (Brenda) In fact, women in business different sets of challenges and more barriers than the equivalent of men, always have done. I realize now because I draw on a pension that when I was working, I was paying … a housewife stamp but now pensions affect it I only have a minimum state pension because there is not enough contribution to it … for years when I was at home I was only working part-time I was only paying a small stamp, no contribution to sickness benefit or any pension. At that age you’re not really worried about your pensions, or nobody tells you about reduced pensions … I think we’ve always been disadvantaged, yeah always.
EH-2 James, Sharon, Mark, Diene, Leigh, Jazz, Haz and Pete	I have a construction business, I’m a pastor of the church … We now have built the offices for the resource centre and the new premises to put the nursery and we have that up and running (James) I’m a wife, I’m a mother of 3 children who have recently flew the nest, I’ve evolved into my role at the church … I did a lot of bookkeeping for our business (informal unpaid) … I do anything and everything all the boring stuff (Sharon) I keep things running smoothly … balancing the responsibility I find that difficult, I think my husband (James) does better in that area he’s more of a leader, I’m more of a follower I struggle delegating. A good leader delegates, I’m a doer a worker, I’m a worker. I haven’t learned to delegate as well (Sharon) I do a lot of volunteering. My role is project coordinator, so I just communicate with each department and coordinate all of our project and activities that are run through the community resource centre and church … because it’s one entity through the charity, hospice of the church … I have BA in Community and Youth work… It fitted in with the voluntary sector because there is so much community youth work that goes alongside my role (Leigh)	Leigh volunteers and does a lot for the business and the church … Haz was helping out in the management of the businesses, Diene is over the nursery because her background is in child education, she came into this when they got married 2 years ago … . so that kind of fitted in that my daughter in law would also help with the day-care. Then Jazz my brand-new daughter in law she finishes her Master’s in child education so she actually will begin working so I got my sons and daughter in laws and me and my wife are literally the oversee-errs … it’s quite incredible the way this has all come to pass. Please don’t ever get this wrong, is that I can trust them explicitly it’s a bit of nepotism bringing the family in to help take care of the business but the way its unfolded has been really uncanny and unfolding in front of me (James). Closeness there bleeds over into the business relationship because you know each other’s personality … supervision happens continually because of our relationship because personal and in business. When you have that kind of mentor dynamic that kind of happens naturally almost automatically everyday … the biggest difference … dynamic works much better kind of a father and mentor, that formal and informal relationship (Leigh) ‘She is my wife, she helps me do the accounts, tax, receipts and paperwork, but she looks after the house and the children’ (James)	Being a family, you can just brush the other one off. Their thoughts their idea gets shrugged off. Being so familiar is an issue, whereas if it was a work colleague … you wouldn’t be able to do that … hard because it just continues, 24 hours a day do … (Sharon) familiarity knowing that … certain people are going to take care of certain things. But sometimes that closeness isn’t a good thing it would be good to separate it … can never switch off from the business because they are so connected… Disadvantage would be trying to take too much on … there is no work life and home life, it’s kind of just life … (Leigh) He’d only like to know time scales because that’s the way he works … I gave him the information that he wanted a lot of the time … he oversees just checks everything. But the actual day to day applications, the monitoring and checking on things fell to me, and I would just feedback that to him (Leigh) In fact, he (James) doesn’t even see two-thirds of what I do … I let him have the final word. So, what do I do? That’s a good question, at the moment mini crisis, if toilets are dirty and I know the cleaning people are not going to be in, ill clean it … I kind of do everything … sometimes I’m a psychiatrist you know want to jump out a window. I can’t put my finger on exactly what I do, I guess just an oversee-er, he’s more of a leader, I’m more of a follower (Sharon)
			He was working his own business, working lots of hours and … I resented it because you know, I was home at that point raising the kids I’m like, I feel like a single mother (Sharon) In 2002 when we came over here from America, he is British Citizen and I’m not … we went to the bank and they wouldn’t let me have a bank card, I couldn’t access money. They wouldn’t let me use my husband’s bank card back in, before chip and pin, they used to read the name in the card … I would sometimes, sneak his card through when I’d go shopping otherwise, he had to be with me. You know I had three kids (Sharon) I was going to school and working full time at that point for an accounting business … got my feet wet with accounting, book-keeping for the clients … I didn’t go back to school it was too much for me at that time having a husband and working full time, so I didn’t finish my degree, work up until we had children … decided I wasn’t going back to work, I was going to raise the boys and we went out on a ‘limp’ … I became unemployed that transition working full-time and becoming a mum, so the household was my priority, but it was really difficult … (Sharon) Most people finish at 5 … but my right-hand … main assistant (referring to Sharon) in all of this is still working, behind the scenes (James). Mum (Sharon) does a lot of work behind the scenes … she’s a grafter (Mark and Pete)
EH-3 Troy and Irene	I have different jobs, programming and music I don’t earn money so it’s not commercial just a hobby … I work six months and I can live my extra five months. Also, we are economic people, we don’t use all our money with my wife … this is a choice (Troy) If my bank account is a bit pumping or going up, I transfer this money to her in case I lose my card or my life, at least she has some money. There is no my money or her money, it’s our money. we agree with this, it’s not a contract we made its our mind set … (Troy) Irene works for me only slightly … money I earned from the company, from the job, I have as savings. so, we recharge the battery, our aim is until the battery is going down, we have to make our company profitable … (Troy) He’s the director, I’m a second director, I’m not even registered or a paid employee so those kinds of things, our life feels very floating … I do Troy’s personal tax returns and all the content for websites, beta-testers … incorporating the company and that took a long time … I look after the baby all the boring things (Irene)	maybe she will just be happy to be a good mum … not care about academic life … if company is going well, she will be happy by helping mine company … for the moment motivation is very low for her because we don’t see the money or income that we expect, it is going very slow … I want to pay her from company, but the money is accumulating in the bank and either we transfer money to our account or buy the things we need for the company. We just bought electronic devices (Troy) Push and pull is the tension of priorities, so for him business is the most important thing, to me our life is the most important thing … so he sees, for example me saying look let’s take a break for a minute or let’s take a walk for a few minutes, he sees that as a distraction from the project but then I see the intense work that he’s doing as destructive. He’s always unavailable (Irene) It’s a very difficult, you do it because you have to and there’s no one else to do it, that’s why I did it … I help him because someone has to. He doesn’t know how to do it or time for he is busy doing his application. So, I don’t like it when he asks me to do something because immediately, I don’t know how to do this and that frustrates me … you want their work to be a success … You don’t want to be the person that’s hampering their project, that’s my fear and that’s why I do it … even though there is lack of support I continued to help him out even after giving birth (Irene) I kind of got used to the cycles of money comes in and then we kind of look after that but that’s completely changed my role in the home so I look after the book-keeping of the company but that book-keeping aligns with the book-keeping of the home and then that book-keeping of the home has become my key priority in life now because those finances are just always declining and that makes me incredibly anxious and always thinking about ‘are we meeting our budget this year or month?… we have been crazy stressed over the last 2 years (Irene)	We make very little money, it’s like pocket change so we rely on other parts of the business like contract work that he does that pays for our living expenses, but that is always stressful … finances are dwindling … those kinds of conversations that are really hard (Irene) I did not react well, when he first asked me to help, he was, to me insistent, asking me for my help. But in my mind I saw this as a kind of whimsy a kind of silliness this project. Why are you doing this?… I was a terrible wife but … those were my concerns and still those are my concerns … When he got serious, and he said … I need you, as in me, because you have the skill to do this. I was going out of my mind because A- I didn’t want to do it, B- I knew it would take long and C- its things that I wasn’t very confident in doing it but I had no choice but I did it. Sounds really negative when I say that, but I really really didn’t want to do it. and still to this day he’ll ask me to do things, but I really really don’t want to do it…but it is hard being asked to do things by the person that you love, and you don’t know whether you can deliver … where they need it to be successful and that is super stressful (Irene) You’re both really stressed because you want it to be successful and your both kind of blaming each other if it’s not successful as you want it to be … he’s blaming me that I don’t do enough and I’m blaming him because he expects too much. and you don’t have other people to talk to about and it’s the things that people don’t talk about … (Irene).
			Tensions so I feel resentful, kind of misunderstanding or like that he doesn’t understand that I’m not trying to distract us, I’m trying to look after him … his mum will be like ‘Troy your so skinny and you need to eat more’ and that’s my responsibility and then I feel guilty that I’m not looking after him … pressures I feel … I didn’t think I would find myself in that space as a wife, it’s really hard but it’s because there’s no like clarity in it in a sense that when your with someone romantically you become one person, you share your lives together whether you have separate jobs or not, when the project is in the home even if it’s one person’s project it unbearably becomes both of your project because it’s within the home and there is no cut-off point … all of the things that you say to each other in the day just gets pushed to the bottom and there’s no debriefing (Irene)
EH-4 Ronaldo and Jasmine	I’m running the business on my own, everything because I have my accountant… I don’t ask her … she’s not doing anything with the business like act like my secretary. She’s going to get angry because she doesn’t know anything about my business, she doesn’t know my income … (Ronaldo) I am full time nurse, night shifts because of childcare because its expensive. So he sends the children in school, and I pick them up after work … For him it’s only the labour for me its financial (Jasmine) In the house, if I get spare time, sometimes I clean, but she’s always doing all the household. When she got work, I bring the kids in the morning, then she picks them up in the afternoon (Ronaldo)	I have my own time. But sometimes it’s hard as well because when your busy you don’t have time for the family. Because if this is your business, if your committed, because your committed to it and you say to your customer that you will finish this at this time, even if it’s your anniversary you still need to. Whatever you said to the customer, you have to do it, if you said you’ll finish on Friday you finish it. It’s not important to the family and that’s a problem (Ronaldo) Your flexible in your time, that’s it. But if, for example I earned a lot today, next week I can be off. If you get your quota, it’s very easy but my problem is because I’m always busy that’s it. I find it hard and I don’t have a day-off. It’s hard to give spare, a day-off because I’m always fully booked (Ronaldo). Going to church helps to socialize, find comfort with the family, it’s our ‘second family’ where you can gather together, tell jokes, be happy, laugh, do activities with other families and kids … (Ronaldo) You feel belongingness. Also, other families look after our kids and sometimes they do the childcare for us because our kids are same age, friends with their own kids … different when you have the Filipino community, because were foreigners here so you can socialize like a family (Jasmine)	Because when we started the business partnership we were helped by Mike and his wife, Jasmine talked to all her friends to find me work. I worked with Mike 2006, then 2010 I’ve been ill and I said I think this is not my career, the joinery. So, I stopped working and I did work in Sainsbury, in a warehouse. You know the normal work here, but the money is not very good because I worked in an agency, so I went back to joinery … if I don’t work because I’m self-employed, if I don’t work, I’m not paid unlike her, she has holiday pay (Ronaldo) Before you can’t buy a house because you’re not a British Citizen, it’s not easy to get a loan if you’re a VISA worker, it’s hard to borrow money, to establish yourself, to buy a house, to invest in my business. But she has a stable job. Me if I don’t work, I don’t have money. We managed to save after a long time because of her payslip from hospital (Ronaldo) When I moved here in UK, she was really on debt. So, it’s really a struggle when I moved here. But it’s also a good thing when I moved here that I got a job already with Mike which Jasmine organized … Because the problem in her side is that she’s sending money in the Philippines because she’s the only breadwinner in the family (Ronaldo) I send money to my family in Philippines to help them in their financial needs, you will have conscience if you don’t help them, I love them … that’s why I work long hours, pick-up bank work, always more on my plate (Jasmine)
EH-5 Faye, Nile and Vicky	I have my personal contacts, but mostly I do like a few old people, they’re like regulars and I do loads of young ones as well so it’s just like a mixture of mostly female … customers that I’ve already got just passing me on to their friends and family (Faye) I’m a Social Worker … I have nothing to do with the business, I wouldn’t know where to start with how to cut hair … I try to stay away (Nile) He does housework like I can’t cook and I’m always with the baby, he does the bins and he’s great with having to change the nappy (Faye)	My mum helps me out … she is hoping to finish work at the end of May so obviously she can help us out with the baby my dad’s just going to carry on his work as normal. Nile, he doesn’t drive so it’s a pain at the minute but I he will carry on as normal but he does want his shifts like three weeks in advance so we can plan things better his working hours is different every week. It’s usually a lot of hours because he’ll do like the night shifts, so he is in at 1 o’clock this afternoon and he won’t finish till 10 o’clock in the morning. So that’s like 21 hours shift … sometimes 24 hours (Faye) I used to live at my mums and they (her parents) helped me a lot even like when I left school my mum helped me get into college and when I did my mobile hairdressing … I and Nile don’t drive so I will give my mum petrol money for running me around … receipts and spreadsheets my mum helps me to do that as well (Faye)	Coping, learning and adjusting fine with the baby. Trying to balance work and baby and family. she slept for 10 hours last night which was good. But we still rely on Faye’s mum to help with the baby. Like I’ll be working most days, put food on the table and that but I get to get away from the chaos at home … because of my long shifts (Nile) I don’t really have time to go back to college. Maybe in the future I’ll have my own shop and employ staff to help me out, but I think I’ll find it hard to go back and study again. I’ve got a baby brain during the best of times, and I’m knackered by the end of the day … I’ve been walking everywhere today and it’s a pain not having a car, but I’m used to using public transport … maybe in the future I’ll start learning to drive, I have to, but it doesn’t bother me at the moment (Faye)