Domestic Division of Labor and Self/Organizationally Employed Differences in Job Attitudes and Earnings

Abstract

This study analyzes the association between self-employment and work-related outcomes including negative spillover between work and home, earnings, and job attitudes. National Study of the Changing Work Force 1997 data support the idea that self-employment provides workers with more scope for matching work activities to their presumed roles in the domestic division of labor. Among married women, the self-employed experience is associated with less negative spillover from job-to-home, greater job satisfaction, and less job burnout. Where pre-school children are present, the earnings of self-employed women are much less than the earnings of the organizationally employed. Among men, self-employment is associated with more job-to-home spillover when there are small children in the family, and with greater job satisfaction.