A life course approach to understand work–life choices of women entrepreneurs: evidence from Pakistan

This thesis attempted to provide a rich and robust understanding of how women’s work–life1 choices are influenced and shaped by the socio-cultural context of Pakistani society. It also illuminated the role of human agency in making work–life choices.
Recently, women’s entrepreneurship has gained wide recognition in research in both developed and developing countries. However, critical analysis of the existing literature highlighted the failure of research in women’s entrepreneurship to recognise the context in which women’s entrepreneurship is embedded (deBruin et al., 2007; Blackburn and Kovalainen, 2009; Welter, 2010). Moreover, the majority of the research was conducted in Anglo-Saxon countries that may not appropriately reflect the true nature of women’s entrepreneurship in the context of developing countries (Gracia and Brush, 2012; Jamali, 2009). As a result there are emerging calls for more research stemming from developing countries (Brush et al., 2009; Jamali, 2009) based on a more explanatory mechanism by including subjective experiences, which may represent a unique set of factors that impinge on a woman’s work–life choices. It is precisely in this context that the present research concentrated on exploring women entrepreneurs’ experiences of managing work and family within the social structures of Pakistan. This study provided insight into how women talk about and experience work and family by including their subjective perspectives. Concisely, the research explored the various ways in which women’s choices of work–life are socially embedded (context specific).