Negotiating the self between past and present: narratives of older women moving towards self-employment

Older people are encouraged into self-employment as a means to extend their working lives; however both age and gender are thought to constrain the capacity of individuals to take on an enterprising identity. This paper explores the narrative identity work of women over 50 contemplating a move into self-employment. It reveals how they negotiated a provisional self-employed identity in relation to an aged identity, an enterprising identity and an identity as organizational outsider. It discusses the implications of contrasting forms of engagement with these identities for the subsequent enactment of participants’ business plans. The paper briefly considers the implications of its findings for the following areas: enacting and realising provisional identities; the relationship of self-employment to enterprise; and a process-based conceptualisation of age