At the Margins of the Economy Women's Self-Employment in Finland, 1960-1990

The idea of overcoming gender-based forms of subordination within the labour market through self-employment received much attention in the research literature in the 1980s. This notion of self-employment as a route for women to escape the subordination of paid work rests upon the assumption that self-employment would provide better opportunities than waged work. - - Anne Kovalainen draws on her own substantial research and addresses issues of gender, structures in ?atypical work?, self-employment and entrepreneurship. The book provides the reader with an overview of the recent theoretical debates which have taken place over gender-based forms of subordination within the labour market. The empirical material is drawn upon the development in Finnish labour markets over the 30-year-period. - - Contrary to many studies concerned with women?s self-employment, the argument in the book is that, at least for women as a group, self-employment does not equal liberation from patriarchal relations in paid work, or from gendered labour and economic structures.