Motherhood and entrepreneurship: the Mumpreneur phenomenon

Women entrepreneurs play a significant role in contributing to the growth of the global and local economy. Many of the contributions come from a strong emerging trend of so called 'Mumpreneurs', which describes mothers involved in entrepreneurial activities. In this chapter, the authors study the new phenomenon of integrating motherhood and entrepreneurship; about their underlying desire to create a better environment for their family and overall community. The uniqueness of being a Mumpreneur is about balancing work and life, sense of achievement and satisfaction with oneself, increasing income, gaining respect to equalize gender imbalance, and becoming independent. There are however challenges facing Mumpreneurs. These include starting ventures with lack of appropriate knowledge, resource constraints, stereotypes, balancing work and life, and limited networking opportunities. To encounter these challenges, the authors select three mini case studies, based on Australian Mumpreneurs to explore their strategies of overcoming such challenges and barriers. Ultimately, recommendations are introduced for newcomer or nascent Mumpreneurs, raising their new ventures in addition to their motherhood duties. Global and domestic economic prosperity will be maximised and sustained only when women have the equal footing with males. This calls for a change in the business environment, more effective programs from social institutions and government, to better support women being amongst others, Mumpreneurs.