Sexual orientation and self-employment: New evidence.

Abstract

Early studies and theory suggest sexual minorities are drawn towards the relative independence of self-employment to avoiddiscrimination in paid employment. However, recent evidence is mixed, suggesting that a higher propensity for self-employment (relative to heterosexual people) is found only among lesbian women relative to heterosexual women. This study overcomes the data limitations of prior research by using data pooled from 2007-2017 cycles of the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) and multivariate logistic regression to provide new evidence on LGB self-employment. The results show that self-employment is particularly high for bisexual people, especially bisexual women-but not for gay men or lesbian women. Overall, this study examines the enduring but nuanced relationship between self-employment and sexual orientation and discusses countervailing factors related to socio-economic resources, gender, and family structure.