Is self-employment a good option? Gender, parents and the work-family interface

Self-employment is a career decision that is likely to be influenced by the gendered dynamics of work and care for parents of young children. We test a theoretical model investigating the effect a transition into self-employment (compared to staying organizationally-employed) has on the work-family interface (work-to-family, family-to-work conflicts and work-family enrichment), exploring the key mechanisms of job autonomy, flexibility and work hours for mothers and fathers. We theorize gender differences in this model which we test using national, cohort data of Australian parents’ employment transitions over 5 time points (2004–2012), with n = 4165 observations from mothers and n = 5059 from fathers. For fathers, self-employment yielded longer work hours, higher work-family conflicts, but lower family-work conflicts, and enhanced enrichment. For mothers, self-employment heralded fewer work hours, lower work-family conflicts, but higher family-work conflicts. Job autonomy was enhanced, and positive for those transitioning into self-employment. While flexibility was positive for fathers, it was not so for mothers, eroding benefits. Results suggest that moving into self-employment ties fathers to ‘breadwinning’ (long hours); and mothers to fitting work more squarely around children’s care needs. Self-employment may entrench gender inequities in paid work opportunities, bringing caution to the current view of self-employment as a ‘solution’ to the work-family dilemma.