“I’d like to make a proper go of it but it’s really scary”: the perpetual liminality of informally self-employed women as stigmatized entrepreneurs

Abstract

This article examines the lived experiences of informally self-employed women in the UK, exploring their marginalized and liminal status amid structural stigmatization. Set against a backdrop of punitive welfare conditionality, and assumptions that self-employment is a straightforward route out of poverty, our research addresses the need for more nuanced studies on poverty, gender, and informal self-employment in developed countries. We draw on qualitative data from 24 interviews with informally self-employed women, analysed using template analysis. We find that these women occupy a paraliminal space where the liminal and liminoid coexist, offering opportunities for agency and resistance. However, this space can become permanent and problematic, as respondents risk criminalization as benefits ’cheats“ if they seek formalization. Our contributions are threefold: First, we use liminality theory and the concept of paralimininality to highlight the complex ”betweenness’ of informally self-employed women. Second, we amplify the voices of these often-overlooked women, applying a gender lens to their experiences of, and responses to, the everyday realities of welfare policy. Finally, we critique the promotion of self-employment as a poverty solution, advocating for policies that acknowledge the unique challenges faced by women who navigate (and are held in) the space between unemployment and formal self-employment.