Women entrepreneurs and wellbeing: An identity perspective

Recognizing the importance of women entrepreneurs for economies and societies, researchers and policy makers are increasingly interested in supporting women’s entrepreneurship activities. Enhancing the wellbeing of women entrepreneurs is essential not only as an ethical imperative but also as a mechanism to understand and improve the process and outcomes of women’s entrepreneurship activities. This chapter employs an identity lens to offer a novel perspective on women entrepreneurs’ wellbeing in a way that is reflective of their nuanced and subjective experiences across multiple local and national contexts. The chapter presents the findings of a literature review on women entrepreneurs’ identities and wellbeing to explicate the multidimensional relationship between women entrepreneurs’ identities and their sustainable eudaimonic and temporal hedonic wellbeing. It maps out the multiple identities salient to women entrepreneurs and considers three main themes: 1) entrepreneurship as an authentic expression of a positive identity, thus contributing to women entrepreneurs’ eudaimonic wellbeing; 2) women entrepreneurs’ multiple conflicting and synergetic identities influencing hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing; and 3) identity work as an active approach to enhance hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing. The chapter concludes with a consideration of what the findings mean for researchers, women entrepreneurs, and actors in entrepreneurship ecosystems.