Health or wealth? How gendered demands, resources and work–family interferences relate to entrepreneurial income and health

Purpose Many female entrepreneurs face greater demands from work and non-work domains than their male counterparts. This study investigates associations between agentic and communal job demands, work–family interferences and resources (temporal autonomy and self-efficacy) with female and male entrepreneurs' health complaints and income to explore nuanced gender differences in entrepreneurial success. Design/methodology/approach Cross-sectional data were analyzed from the German BAuA-Working Time Survey (Wöhrmann et al., 2021) with N = 1,370 entrepreneurs (922 male, 448 female). Findings Communal job demands were positively related to health complaints only among male entrepreneurs, whereas family–work conflict was positively associated with health complaints only among female entrepreneurs. In terms of income, self-efficacy showed positive associations for females, but not for males. Agentic job demands were positively associated with income for both genders, while communal job demands were only positively related to income for female entrepreneurs. Originality/value Due to limited theoretical and empirical attention to gender, this study contributes to a better understanding of both commonalities and unique differences in how male and female entrepreneurs experience challenges arising from work and life domains. We complement prior research on the job demands-resources model (JD-R) by integrating gender and congruity theory as well as the 5M-framework.