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Childcare a barrier for female entrepeneurs

Business
Women’s enterprise is being curbed by childcare responsibilities, says an entrepreneurship expert, who is calling for more funded childcare for the self-employed.

Dr Julia Rouse from Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) said the latest ONS figures that show a 34 per cent rise in the number of self-employed women in the UK since 2009, obscure the fact that women who start their own business are unlikely to turn a profit and are hampered by their childcare responsibilities.

According to Dr Rouse, women still only make up a third of the UK’s self-employed, the equivalent of 1.4 million, and the top occupations are childminders, cleaners, carers and hairdressers. The majority of self-employed women earn less than £10,000 a year.

Dr Rouse is a keynote speaker at an event organised by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) on 4 November entitled, ‘Developing women’s enterprise to create sustainable communities’.

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