Should sisters be doing it for themselves? Against the housewifisation of women’s entrepreneurship
利用英国家庭纵向调查数据，发现女性主导的兼职自雇虽能兼顾家务与收入，但收入显著低于全职自雇或受雇者，且家庭更依赖福利补贴，揭示了这种“家庭主妇化”工作形式的低价值、低地位和贫困风险。
In this article, we evaluate the gendered implications of the expansion of part-time self-employment (PTSE) for women who use this option as a form of flexible working. Using panel data from the UK Household Longitudinal Survey, we confirm that unsurprisingly, women dominate PTSE, given it enables them to combine household work and income generation. However, we also find that PTSE incurs a significant penalty compared to the incomes of both men and women in full-time self-employment or waged work. Relatedly, in households with women in PTSE, there is also a greater dependency upon state welfare benefits to supplement low incomes. Theoretically, we contribute to current debates by conceptualising this evidence as the ‘housewifization’ of PTSE: a feminised form of work afforded low visibility, value and status leading to greater precarity and poverty, the detriment of which is camouflaged by the socio-cultural positivity attributed to entrepreneurship in the contemporary era.