Family support, work-life balance and entrepreneurial well-being: a global systematic review with a gendered perspective

Purpose Research on family support (FS), work-life balance (WLB) and entrepreneurial well-being (EWB) has proliferated across fragmented disciplinary streams, including family business, occupational health and gender studies, yet these literature have operated largely in isolation. This fragmentation is particularly consequential given the rising global participation of women in entrepreneurship and the increasing recognition that well-being outcomes are central, not peripheral, to entrepreneurial success and sustainability. Prior work has acknowledged that family and social support influence general life satisfaction among both employees and entrepreneurs. However, no systematic review has synthesized these streams to foreground the distinctive role of FS within entrepreneurial contexts, where family and work are fundamentally intertwined. To address this gap, we conduct a systematic review guided by three research questions: (1) How does FS influence EWB? (2) How does WLB mediate the FS-EWB relationship? (3) How do gender and socio-cultural factors moderate the FS-WLB-EWB relationship? Design/methodology/approach Guided by PRISMA protocol and SPIDER framework, we systematically reviewed 47 empirical, peer-reviewed studies from major databases (1987–2024). Findings FS is context-dependent rather than uniformly beneficial. WLB operates as a dynamic mediator rather than a static outcome. Gender and socio-cultural conditions function as critical moderators profoundly shaping these dynamics. Notably, most evidence comes from emerging economies with growing female entrepreneurship and is often published outside mainstream Western journals, revealing important geographical asymmetries in research dissemination. Originality/value To our knowledge, this is the first systematic integration of these literature into a unified conceptual framework. We advance theoretical understanding by shifting the question from if FS matters to how, when, and for whom it influences EWB. We conclude by outlining a research agenda that calls for cross-cultural, comparative studies to address geographical imbalances and capture institutional diversity.