Family business dynamics: How marriage and children impact men and women entrepreneurs differently

This thesis focuses on women entrepreneurs' underperformance in terms of business performance, specifically addressing the question of whether the presence of children and a spouse impact self-employed men and women's wages differently. This study investigates the female underperformance hypothesis and examines the causes for female underperformance beyond traditional economic measures and views women in the context of their family lives. The basic proposition is that marriage and children pose a different set of challenges to men and women entrepreneurs. By acknowledging the overlap of gender, family, and business we are able to observe how the institution of marriage as well as the presence of children impacts women's self-employment wages differently from men's. For the overall self-employed population, marriage and children both served as a positive influence on hourly wages. However, when observing the interaction of women and children as well as women and marriage on wage, both overlaps seem to have a negative impact on wage. This supports the proposition that marriage and children pose a different set of challenges to female entrepreneurs and raises an alternate cause for female underperformance.