夫妻一方创业对幸福感影响的性别差异——基于社会规范的解释

Gender Differences in the Effect of One Spouse Starting a Business on Happiness: Based on Empirical Analysis of Social Norms

自雇型创业作为一种特殊的劳动力市场参与方式,是个人实现就业与职业发展的重要渠道,对个人、家庭以及社会的福利状况都具有重要影响。基于CGSS(2010—2013)数据,本文实证考察了家庭中丈夫或妻子从事自雇型创业对双方幸福感的影响。研究发现,丈夫进行自雇型创业降低了自身的幸福感,但显著增加了妻子的幸福感,与之相反的是,妻子进行自雇型创业有助于提升自己的幸福感,但会显著降低丈夫的幸福感。进一步的分析表明,“男主外、女主内”“妻子收入不应该超过丈夫”的传统社会规范是导致配偶幸福感存在差异的主要原因,妻子创业使得这种社会规范更容易被违背。此外,本文还发现,在市场化程度高、制度环境好的地区,人们受性别认同规范的影响较小,妻子创业对丈夫幸福感的负面影响不复存在。本文的研究从创业幸福感的角度表明,要想激发人们尤其是女性的创业活力并培育企业家精神,消除非制度性的传统封建观念影响显得至关重要。

Since the financial crisis,in order to stimulate the economy and promote employment,the government has put forward the slogan of mass entrepreneurship and innovation.Obviously,the government's encouragement has led to a wave of entrepreneurship in the society,and the number of start ups has increased significantly.According to the types,entrepreneurship can be divided into opportunity entrepreneurship and self employed entrepreneurship.As a special way to participate in the labor market,self employed entrepreneurship is an important channel for individuals to achieve employment and career development,and has an important impact on individuals,families and social welfare.Considering that happiness is one of the best measures of personal well being,based on Chinese General Social Survey data(CGSS),this paper empirically investigated the influence of self employed entrepreneurship on the happiness.Unlike the existing literature which only considers the interviewees,the innovation of this paper lies in taking the family as the object of analysis,and investigating the happiness of husbands or wives and their influence on their spouses.In particular,the study found that the husband's self employed entrepreneurship reduced his own happiness,but significantly increased his wife's happiness.On the contrary,the wife's self employed entrepreneurship helped to increase her happiness,but significantly reduced her husband's happiness.The findings reveal a confusing situation in which a business started by one member of the family is either bad for him or for his spouse,and does not seem to lead to a win win outcome.In order to explain these phenomena,a series of tests were conducted in this study.Further analysis shows that the traditional social norms of“male breadwinner,female breadwinner”and“wife should not earn more than husband”are the main reasons for the differences in spousal happiness,and the social norms are more likely to be violated by the wife starting her own business.When a woman starts a business,her chances of earning more than her husband increase dramatically,which can easily challenge this social norm and lead to a decrease in her husband's happiness.On the contrary,a husband's entrepreneurship reduces the possibility of his wife violating this social norm.Obviously,this kind of gender norm has seriously undermined women's enthusiasm for work and entrepreneurship.Generally speaking,social norms are complementary to formal systems.When the formal system is relatively perfect,the influence of social norms is relatively small,and the restriction on people's behavior is relatively weak.So,this paper also found that in areas with high marketization degree and good institutional environment,people are less affected by gender identity norms,and the negative impact of the wife's entrepreneurship on her husband's happiness no longer exists.In conclusion,from the perspective of entrepreneurial happiness,the research of this paper shows that it is of vital importance to eliminate the influence of non institutional traditional feudal concepts if people,especially women,want to stimulate their entrepreneurial vitality and cultivate entrepreneurship.On this basis,this paper further puts forward some policy recommendations to promote employment and happiness.First,the government should vigorously promote modern social norms of equality,introduce policies to promote gender equality,and reduce the impact of feudal traditional ideas on people.Second,to further create a good business environment,reduce the cost and uncertainty of entrepreneurship,and enhance people's expectations for the future.Thirdly,with the liberalization of the two child policy,the government should further strengthen the social security construction in the areas of pension and childcare,and alleviate the worries of women's entrepreneurship.