“The Best Time is Now!”: The Temporal and Spatial Dynamics of Women Opting in to Self-Employment

McKie, L.; Biese, I.; Jyrkinen, M.

doi:10.1111/gwao.12019

“The Best Time is Now!”: The Temporal and Spatial Dynamics of Women Opting in to Self-Employment

McKie, L.; Biese, I.; Jyrkinen, M.

Authors

L. McKie

I. Biese

M. Jyrkinen

Abstract

This paper explores the potential for the concepts of time and space, together with the analogy of landscapes, to aid the exploration and understandings of women's careers. Drawing upon case studies of women who chose to opt in to self-employment, we examine how the multi-faceted histories of these women are drawn upon as they remember the past, explain contemporary experiences, and anticipate their futures. All the women spoke of opting in to self-employment as the best of times; they talked of greater control over work content, the relationship between family, gender and paid work, and self-determinism and autonomy. They noted times when their careers were frayed but only in retrospect could they assess the context, consequences and impact of events. The framework of careerscapes — our unique blending of the notion of careers along with socio-economic and geographical interpretations of scapes — offers a framework to examine frayed careers and multiple aspects of working and caring over time and space.

Citation

McKie, L., Biese, I., & Jyrkinen, M. (2013). “The Best Time is Now!”: The Temporal and Spatial Dynamics of Women Opting in to Self-Employment. Gender, Work and Organization, 20(2), 184-196. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12019

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	Mar 1, 2013
Deposit Date	Dec 3, 2012
Publicly Available Date	Apr 28, 2014
Journal	Gender, Work and Organization
Print ISSN	0968-6673
Electronic ISSN	1468-0432
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	20
Issue	2
Pages	184-196
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12019

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Copyright Statement
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: McKie, L. and Biese, I. and Jyrkinen, M. (2013) ''The best time is now!' : the temporal and spatial dynamics of women opting in to self-employment.', Gender, work & organization., 20 (2). pp. 184-196, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12019. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.