Self-employment and Civic Inclination

Abstract

We test whether the self-employed have higher levels of civic inclination (trust, political activism, community closeness, community participation) compared to workers from the private sector. We examine the civic inclinations of the self-employed with two national cross-sectional data sets. We use a variety of discrete and continuous regression models. We find that the self-employed have higher levels of political activism, feel closer to neighbors and family, and have greater odds of engaging to solve community problems. We fail to detect differences in donating money, attending community events, and closeness to friends. Previous research has concluded with county-level data that the self-employed are important actors in building community and creating social capital. Our results add to this literature by showing that the self-employed have higher levels of civic inclination with individual-level data. Implications for theory and research are discussed.