Business Partnership and the Gendering of Wealth Creation: ‘His Dream and My Money’

Abstract

This chapter focuses on enterprise in different economic sectors and draws on examples of female enterprise to argue that women’s efforts and particularly wives’ contributions are crucial in the initial phase of wealth creation, during start-up. It examines how businesses are started, seeking to show that resources such as investment capital, skills, family heritage and, not least, family labour and particularly wives’ labour are key resources during start-up. In reporting considerable diversity amongst the husband and wife partnerships across very different sectors of the economy, the findings are in contrast to Allen and Truman’s (1991) pioneering work on independent women entrepreneurs, which suggests that women entrepreneurs are restricted to particular economic sectors. This finding draws attention to the question of gender identity and the gendered character of resources at the phase of business startup, for the research upon which this book is based suggests that men have more resources to access market opportunities, and that the market is more open to men.