Scholarship has increasingly pointed to the family as the primary social organization shaping self-employment decisions. Firstly, the study of family’s influence on self-employment decisions has been done from the inter-generational transmission perspective. On the other hand, the analysis of the role played by gender has delivered a long amount of papers and relevant results showing very different motivations for men and women for becoming self-employed. At this respect, several studies have pointed out that women are more prevalent in ‘‘unincorporated and non-professional self-employment’’ because self-employment offers an opportunity to ‘‘balance work and family life’’. In that sense, in the last decades a few studies have been focused on how marriage and relationship status determine self-employment decisions. Therefore, certain family conditions further modify women’s opportunities and decisions, such as husbands’ employment and the presence of children. In any case, the family context appears to have a very relevant effect on women decisions on entrepreneurship. This special issue is to improve the dissemination of advanced research in the area of family’s influence on self-employment decisions. Specifically, original research papers are solicited on the behavior observed by gender.

Aims and Scope:

1. General woman family context and entrepreneurship
2. Women marital status and entrepreneurship
3. Intergenerational transmission and women entrepreneurship
4. Self-employment types and gender