Rethinking Women in Entrepreneurship in China: A Family Perspective

Chinese female entrepreneurs dominate the world’s richest group of female billionaires, but are strikingly marginalized in the current gender discourse and significantly underexplored in available studies. Despite the emerging scholarly interests in tandem with the increasing number of Chinese women entrepreneurs, existing discussions extensively focus on barriers to female entrepreneurship, and it remains unclear the identity of women engaging in entrepreneurship. The present study attempts to fill the gap by clarifying the identity of women in entrepreneurship. Based on in-depth interviews with 16 women in entrepreneurship, the study examines how their entrepreneurial identity and experiences are shaped by the Chinese family. Qualitative analysis indicates a pivotal role of family environment in shaping women’s sense of self in entrepreneurship. On the one hand, women in entrepreneurship identify themselves in terms of family members. On the other hand, the context of family businesses prompts performative entrepreneurship that sheds new light on the commonly perceived image of women entrepreneurs. The family perspective sheds an alternative light to the generic interpretation of entrepreneurship by illuminating the dynamics of the identity of women engaging in entrepreneurship in China.