Undergrad project on single mother entrepreneurs bears fruit

Ryan Daly is doing an undergraduate degree in Business Enterprise. His final year project on single mother entrepreneurs has already instigated interest from Glasgow City Council and may even affect policy in the future. Here, he explains how his own background sparked that research interest.

In my younger years, my mum raised me and my two older sisters on her own, before meeting her current partner. From a young age, I’ve always been able to see the sacrifices she made for us, both professionally and socially. My awareness of the sacrifices and pressures that single mothers face made me curious about how they experience the world of entrepreneurship. So, my mother being a single parent certainly ignited my interest in the topic of single mother entrepreneurs, despite her not being an entrepreneur herself.

With this in mind, I decided to focus on single mother entrepreneurs for my undergraduate project. To research the topic, I carried out in-depth interviews with single mother entrepreneurs, mainly based in the UK. I also carried out an interview with a single mother entrepreneur based in Australia, to allow for comparative analysis. To add to my interview findings, I attended a workshop run by Barclays Eagle Labs which focused on supporting single parents entering entrepreneurship. This helped to shape and validate a lot of my thinking and prior findings.

The Barclays Eagle Labs event was aimed at giving insight and support to single parents aiming to pursue entrepreneurship. The event featured several guest speakers who shared their experiences of being a single parent in entrepreneurship, and others who highlighted just how much support is available for single mothers - the awareness of it is just poor. I was able to attend the event as I was in touch with Mike, who is the programme director for child poverty and prevention at Glasgow City Council, and he suggested it may aid my research to attend the event.

Following on from the Barclays event, I was in touch with Mike to thank him for setting it up for me. Mike asked if I’d be happy to meet and discuss my dissertation findings as a current project he is working on relates to assisting single mothers out of poverty - whether that be starting a business or out of employment. I met with Mike and his colleague Andrew and briefly discussed my findings - following on from this, they requested a brief document outlining the key findings of my dissertation which would be relevant to their work with OPFS.

For me the key takeaway from my dissertation is that single mothers often pursue entrepreneurship out of necessity, not just ambition. They face major barriers, such as a lack of affordable childcare, financial support, and exclusion from networks. It is often the case that in the face of these challenges single mothers develop real strengths such as resilience, adaptability, and creative time management. However, single mothers are overall under-supported by current systems and knowledge gaps.

The main interests from Mike and Andrew were the findings surrounding support gaps, like how inaccessible funding is and how few single mothers are aware of the support that actually does exist - particularly in the early stages of their business. They’re looking at how to make support services more visible and relevant to single mothers.

To think they’re using some of my work as part of a discussion means a lot to me; it’s good to know real work is being done to tackle the issues I had investigated over the last couple of months. It’s surreal and validating that my work may influence policy discussions, but even if it doesn’t, I’m still proud that people in those positions have taken a great interest in it. I had never expected my university work to leave the classroom, so to see it potentially spark real conversations is something which feels incredibly rewarding. In a sense it feels like my work could help people, which is more than I ever hoped for when starting the project.

Feedback from Andrew and Mike has been very positive, they have passed on the work I shared with them to those who hosted the Barclays event to support them too.

I’ve just finished my dissertation, so I’m glad to have had that submitted. Post graduation, I plan to move to Australia in October and kickstart my professional career. I’m hoping to take up a people-focused role and continue to explore avenues where I could possibly make a difference.

About Ryan Daly

Ryan Daly is currently in his final year studying Business Enterprise with Human Resource Management at Strathclyde Business School.