Emprender en precariedad, vivir en incertidumbre: experiencias de microemprendedores/as en la Región Metropolitana de Chile

Abstract

This study investigates the personal and social resources of the microentrepreneur deploys to face work-family reconciliation. A qualitative methodology was used with eight focus groups of men and women from different ages in the Metropolitan Region, which includes Greater Santiago. The results indicated personal resources such as autonomy and self-efficacy driven in micro-entrepreneurship were insufficient to successfully lead the productive process and its different stages -processing, dissemination, marketing, and accounting-. On the contrary, the shortfall in the state's social resources and new domesticity intensify precariousness, developing expectations that extend the present in a permanent continuum and conditions that minimally ensure life or protect against risks such as poverty, old age, and illness.