Central European Business Review 2018, 7(3):26-41 | DOI: 10.18267/j.cebr.201

The Life Partner and the Life Satisfaction of the Entrepreneur

Aliaa El Shoubaki1, Meike Stephan2
1 Montpellier Business School, 2300 av. des Moulins, F34185, Montpellier, France, a.elshoubaki@montpellier-bs.com
2 University of Siegen, Unteres Schloss III, 57072 Siegen, Germany, meike.stephan@uni-siegen.de

The life satisfaction of entrepreneurs is a subject of increasing importance. Research shows that entrepreneurs are more satisfied with their jobs when compared to wage earners. However, it remains poorly understood how satisfied entrepreneurs are with their lives. We argue that the family can contribute largely to how individuals feel about their lives. In particular, research suggests that the life partner influences the individual’s life satisfaction differently depending on their occupation (employed or self-employed). Thus, in this paper we investigate the effect of life partners on the life satisfaction of entrepreneurs. To do so, we use arguments from the family embeddedness perspective on entrepreneurship and test them using data from the 2016 cohort of the German Socio-economic Panel Study (SOEP) and regression models. We find that the life partner contributes positively to the life satisfaction of entrepreneurs and wage earners. This effect is greater for entrepreneurs without employees as compared to entrepreneurs with employees. These results contribute to the understanding of an under researched outcome of entrepreneurship which is the life satisfaction of entrepreneurs.

Keywords: life satisfaction, entrepreneurship, self-employment, life partner, family
JEL classification: I30, L26

Received: August 5, 2018; Revised: October 3, 2018; Prepublished online: November 19, 2018; Published: November 20, 2018  Show citation

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El Shoubaki, A., & Stephan, M. (2018). The Life Partner and the Life Satisfaction of the Entrepreneur. Central European Business Review, 7(3), 26-41. doi: 10.18267/j.cebr.201
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