Couples Going Into Business Together

In the past decade, more couples are going into business together than ever before.
Glenn Muske, an Oklahoma State University professor who has spent six years studying the topic, estimates that 3 million of the 22 million U.S. small businesses in 2000 were couple-owned.

Mariam Hawley and Jeffrey McIntyre, a married couple of thirty years recently published "You and Your Partner, Inc.", a book about the growing trend of entrepreneurial couples.

What they found after conducting over 50 interviews with couples of all ages in all types of industries is that for the most part, the co-partnership actually strengthens their romances and businesses.

Our interview with Hawley and McIntyre shed some light on the reasons for this emerging trend. Part of it is that corporate America sometimes stifles couples' options for the type of lifestyle they want to lead. Long hours and structured workplaces leave little time for them to spend together and less opportunity to express and use multiple parts of their personalities, skills and talents.

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