More stay-at-home moms in the U.S. are going into business for themselves, Reuters reports:
The Small Business Administration says the number of self-employed women around the country jumped by 10 percent from 2000 to 2006, to 5.3 million.
For Lewis, an online marketplace called Etsy provided a place to sell her estate-style and faux vintage pieces. The website, www.etsy.com, lets craft makers set up their own virtual shops. It currently has more than 4.2 million users.
“It’s wonderful to be able to call my own shots,” Lewis said. “I can work at night, so if I want to do something with my family, I can.”
Launched in 2005, the Brooklyn, New York-based Etsy now has more than 400,000 sellers, most of whom are women, and posted more than $180 million in sales last year. Nearly 70 percent of sellers are college-educated.
Moms cite balance and flexibility as reasons to start their own online craft shops. A sociologist comments on the trend:
“Women are looking to both work and take care of families, but the traditional workplace doesn’t provide that opportunity, so they are looking for their own ingenious ways (to do that),” said Pamela Stone, a sociology professor at New York City’s Hunter College.
“What women are seeking is flexibility and these companies are providing them with this option,” said Stone, who wrote “Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home.”
Comments 5
Jason R — March 20, 2010
This post is conveniently timed with the Sociology Lens piece on the commodification of the home "Want An Egg? It’s as Easy as Faxing: Home and Efficiency." While NMccoy1 discusses household technology within Hochschild's frame of the Time Bind (technology makes housework more efficient/productive leaving women to work elsewhere), your feature sets it in a different (if not deeply traditional) light - household production. Rather than technology creating time for work outside the house (the escape from home life), it enables more work from home. In the former, women's work is formalized in the mainstream economy and an escape from the home; whereas here, women's traditionally invisible work is now online and formally measured in economic terms.
The internet has created a venue for traditionally female labor such as household craft-work now sold through Etsy and knowledge-sharing now distributed through blogs (see the NY Times article "Honey, Don’t Bother Mommy. I’m Too Busy Building My Brand" on 3/12/10). It seems that the internet is now making what was once invisible women's work into a formal economy. To the sociologists of occupations, gender, and work: how do you think this trend will affect the status and accounting of women's labor?
It does not seem to formalize the labor of childcare, housework, or emotional work (the "third shift"), and therefore does not seem to resolve the undervaluation of this work. But, I think it offers publicly available and economically incentivized platform for discussing traditionally female production. On the other hand, it also subjects the "private sphere" to the forces of production in a way that may be different from when it was invisible. Thoughts?
rosh — March 22, 2010
I think that online opportunities such as these are great for moms who want to stay at home and take care of their kids. In the 21st century it is very difficult for families of all types to find time to spend together . Though there have been numerous technological advances that have sped up our communication systems, having a family dinner together or a family vacation isn't always possible. Having an online job is something that will greatly help moms and their entire family.
The Transformation of Stay-at-Home Moms « ACCORDING TO KATIE: critically examining pop culture today — March 23, 2010
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The Transformation of Stay-at-Home Moms « ACCORDING TO KATIE: critically examining pop culture today — March 23, 2010
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Eleanor Ford — April 1, 2021
When I became a mother, I also began to study drawing and crafting. I studied from scratch. Now I paint with these oil markers on rockes and wood: https://artistro.com/collections/oil-based-paint-pens. And I have been successfully selling my work on the Internet for 5 years. I still can’t believe that creating artworks is currently my job and brings me money. I’m so happy for that.
I think it's great that women found such a way to make money. Now there are many opportunities to learn and find clients on the Internet and we should use it.