My Mother-in-Law Doesn’t Like It: Resources, Social Norms, and Entrepreneurial Intentions of Women in an Emerging Economy

This paper provides new evidence at the intersectionality of gender, family status, and culture by focusing on a previously little researched group of middle-class women in an emerging economy. While the existing literature examines both structural and normative constraints for women entrepreneurship, little is known about the gains from relaxing structural constraints for women when compared to men. In addition to examining this new question, the paper sheds light on the binding nature of normative constraints for women entrepreneurship that persist in a patriarchal economy even when structural constraints are significantly eased. Using a mixed-methods approach, the empirical results suggest that higher resource availability differentially impact the entrepreneurial intentions of women when compared to men indicating the strong presence of normative barriers that inhibit their entrepreneurship. These normative barriers emerge through the roles people play within women’s life spheres inhibiting their entrepreneurial intentions.