Navigating the Family Support Dilemma in Female Entrepreneurship: An Embeddedness Perspective

Drawing on family embeddedness and gender performativity, we examine how family support is enacted and governed through gendered norms, and how female entrepreneurs navigate these dynamics. Based on indepth interviews with female entrepreneurs and family members in Ethiopia, we introduce the family support dilemma: a process in which support enabling female entrepreneurship simultaneously generates explicit or internalized obligations that constrain sustained engagement and growth over time. Our findings show that family support is embedded in gendered social structures, functioning as a site of norm enforcement where support is granted or withdrawn based on women’s enactment of gender role expectations.