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This article explores return migration for the purpose of starting small businesses. I discuss the cases of three individuals who decided to leave their employment in urban areas to start businesses in a small town in Tōhoku. The key research question focuses on how gender influences the ability of people to start and maintain small business in rural areas and the extent to which expectations and assumptions associated with gender roles inhibits the ability of women to start and continue small businesses. My findings suggest that gender can be an important inhibitor for people running businesses in rural Japan, but that this is not necessarily associated with being a woman. Furthermore, blockage of achieving personal and business goals, which are associated more with finding existential meaning rather than economic wealth, were more directly associated with one’s role in the family than with expectations specifically linked to gender. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]