Negotiating business and family demands within a patriarchal society – the case of women entrepreneurs in the Nepalese context

The aim of this paper is to advance our understanding of how women negotiate their business and family demands in a developing country context. The highest cited motivation for women’s pursuit of entrepreneurship has been their need to attend to these demands. Yet, empirically we know little about the negotiating actions taken by, and the business satisfaction of women in the context of both livelihood challenges and patriarchal contexts, despite several scholarly calls for contextualised accounts of women’s entrepreneurship. We explore these issues by employing a qualitative study of 90 women engaged in primarily informal entrepreneurial activities in three Nepalese regions. Our findings highlight three main and interrelated themes – negotiating consent, family resource access and gaining status. These themes allow us to contextualise the process of negotiating business and family demands by highlighting how women legitimise their business activities, respond to family/societal expectations and mobilise support for, and find satisfaction in their business. Overall, our study contributes towards accounts of business-family interface that incorporate the everyday practices of entrepreneurial activities amongst those less privileged in terms of resource access in particular socio-cultural contexts.