In Sweden, a growing number of mothers are starting a new venture when their children are young. This is surprising in a country where the welfare system with its family policies favors employees, not entrepreneurs. Because the Scandinavian welfare systems promote employment over entrepreneurship, we were were curious why so many mothers of young children still choose to launch ventures of their own.
Going into this research, we were expecting that motherhood played a similar motivational role to what we know about women entrepreneurs in other countries. The dominant Anglo-Saxon literature on women’s entrepreneurship asserts that women, particularly those with caregiving responsibilities, engage in entrepreneurship as a fallback option to traditional employment, since entrepreneurship provides more flexibility to combine childcare with work while considering the needs of others. However, our research turned up some surprising findings: Work/life balance was not a deciding factor with the women we surveyed. Instead, a long parental leave gave them time to think about what they really wanted for their careers, and entrepreneurship became an attractive option.