Differences In Self-employment Research Articles

The Long-Run Effects of Communism and Transition to a Market System on Self-Employment: The Case of Germany

We investigate how self-employment in East Germany was impacted by 40 years of Soviet-style communism and the subsequent shock transition to a market economic system. To this end, we compare self-employment in East and West Germany after reunification with self-employment before the separation of Germany after World War II. Our results show that the strict anti-entrepreneurial policies prevalent during the Soviet regime do not have a long-run negative effect on self-employment in East Germany. Quite to the contrary, self-employment in East Germany today is higher than before German separation. This finding cannot be explained by necessity self-employment. Our analysis suggests that current differences in self-employment between East and West Germany are pre-dominantly a result of the sudden shock transformation that occurred with reunification, rather than the outcome of four decades of anti-entrepreneurial policies and ideology.

Generational differences in self-employment: work characteristics, health, work-family, and satisfaction

This paper examines self-employment by generational cohort (millennials, generation X, baby boomers, and matures) in relation to work variables, health variables, work-family variables, and life and job satisfaction. The analyses used data from a national probability sample (n = 738 self-employed), the National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW). Significant differences were found between generational groups of self-employed for most of the major study variables (e.g., hours worked, job pressure, work-family conflict). We also found that the study variables (e.g., autonomy, turnover intentions) predicted job satisfaction in self-employment. Limitations, implications, and directions for future research are discussed.

Generational differences in self-employment: work characteristics, health, work-family, and satisfaction

This paper examines self-employment by generational cohort (millennials, generation X, baby boomers, and matures) in relation to work variables, health variables, work-family variables, and life and job satisfaction. The analyses used data from a national probability sample (n = 738 self-employed), the National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW). Significant differences were found between generational groups of self-employed for most of the major study variables (e.g., hours worked, job pressure, work-family conflict). We also found that the study variables (e.g., autonomy, turnover intentions) predicted job satisfaction in self-employment. Limitations, implications, and directions for future research are discussed.

SELF-EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGNERS AS AN INNOVATIVE SOLUTION ON THE LABOR MARKET IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

The main aim of this article is to identify certain specificity in self-employment of foreigners in EU countries and to find out whether the differences in self-employment of foreigners between countries are diminishing. Within the main objective, we have set two sub-objectives. The first sub-objective is to compare EU countries on the basis of the following indicators: 1/ number of self-employed foreigners and 2/ share of self-employed foreigners in employed persons from foreign countries. The second sub-objective is to determine whether EU countries converge in the number of the share of self-employed foreigners in the number of employed persons from foreign countries. We have confirmed that the countries have a tendency to convergence in regard to the share of self-employed foreigners in employed persons from foreign countries. We assume that this tendency can also be due to the pressure of the labour market that shows a lack of labour force. The share of self-employed migrants is relatively high in Eastern Europe. On the other hand, their increase is below average compared to the EU.

Career or Flexible Work Arrangements? Gender Differences in Self-employment in a Young Market Economy

We examined supply-side determinants of transition from the wage and salary sector to self-employment of women and men living Poland. The empirical analysis was made possible due to a unique and under explored longitudinal survey—Social Diagnosis—that contains rare indicators such as job preferences and work events. The empirical results in the 2007–2015 period indicated that women and men transitioning into self-employment were differently motivated. In terms of job attributes, women found independence at work and for those in professional occupations a job matching their competences as a desirable job attribute, while for men the lack of stress, a good salary and independence was key. The analysis of work events and its influence on self-employment weakly confirmed the glass-ceiling hypothesis. In line with other research, our analysis indicated that financial constraints strongly determined the entry into self-employment. A key human capital determinant was past entrepreneurial experience indicating a slow, cautious transition process into self-employment.

The role of gender and its potential channels to affect self-employment in Taiwan

This research investigates the gender differences in the self-employment sector by employing a dynamic panel model with county- and city-level data from 1998 to 2016 in Taiwan. Our study is distinct from most others in this issue in that we explore not only the inter-gender difference, but also the intra-gender differences in self-employment. Following this framework, we first find that women are on average less likely to self-employ than men, and further find that older men, married men, men living in lower income regions and women living in higher income regions are more likely to become self-employed compared to their respective reference groups. We thus argue that gender influences self-employment not only directly but also through interactions with other demographic variables. Separate evaluation of different groups based on demographics should therefore result in better targeting of policies.

Career or Flexible Work Arrangements? Gender Differences in Self-Employment in a Young Market Economy

We examine supply-side determinants of transition from the wage and salary sector to self-employment of women and men living Poland. The empirical analysis is made possible due to a unique and under explored longitudinal survey – Social Diagnosis – that contains rare indicators such as job preferences and work events. The empirical results in the 2007-2015 period indicate that women and men transitioning into self-employment are differently motivated. In terms of job attributes, women find independence at work and for those in professional occupations a job matching their competences as a desirable job attribute, while for men the lack of stress, a good salary and independence is key. The analysis of work events and its influence on self-employment weakly confirms the glass-ceiling hypothesis. In line with other research, our analysis indicates that financial constraints strongly determine the entry into self-employment. A key human capital determinant is past entrepreneurial experience indicating a slow, cautious transition process into self-employment.

Regional differences in self-employment in China

This paper investigates the impact of personal characteristics and institutional environment on the decision to be self-employed in China. It is shown that a difference in the likelihood of being self-employed exists between urban and rural areas. Our results show that institutional differences between rural and urban areas influence self-employment decisions. Factors that exert a consistent impact regardless of the local institutional environment are marriage, education, money spent on weddings and gifts, economic openness, and accessibility of information. The impact of other factors differs across rural and urban areas. These factors include family ownership of real estate, experience, gender, population density, the management capacity of local government, and the development of private economy in the local community.

Gender differences in self-employment in Spain

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the gender differences of self-employment in Spain. Design/methodology/approach A binary choice model is specified and estimated, using information from the Continuous Working Life Sample drawn from the registers of the Spanish Social Security. Moreover, the differences in self-employment between men and women are also analysed, through the decomposition proposed by Yun (2004). Findings The results indicate that the differences between both groups in the probability of being entrepreneurs stem from unobservable factors. The difference explained by the unobservable component is 84.12 per cent, whereas the rest, 15.88 per cent, is explained by the characteristics component. The explanatory factors of being an entrepreneur affect men and women in the same way, but to a different extent, explained mainly by factors related to gender. Originality/value This paper sets out to identify whether there are gender differences in the probability of becoming self-employed and, if there are, to quantify what part of the difference in entrepreneurship between men and women is explained by the characteristics of each gender group and what part is because of unobservable factors. From the perspective of the public authority, knowing the determinants that explain why the entrepreneurial activity is different depending on gender is fundamental in being able to reduce the entrepreneurial gap between men and women.

Self-employment, earnings, and sexual orientation

Although many studies document differences by sexual orientation in earnings and other labor-market outcomes, little is known about differences in self-employment. Our study contributes to both the self-employment literature and sexual-orientation literature by analyzing differences in self-employment rates and earnings by sexual orientation. Gay men are less likely to be self-employed than married men, whereas lesbians are equally likely to be self-employed as married women. We find that gay men earn less than married men. We do find, however, that for those gay men who are self-employed, there is little evidence of a further earnings penalty, at least among full-time workers. Lesbians earn at least as much as married women, but receive no further earnings premium—or penalty—by being self-employed, again among full-time workers.

Revisiting native and immigrant entrepreneurial activity

Entrepreneurial activity differs substantially across immigrant groups in the USA, but relating self-employment rates in the US to home-country self-employment shares has provided inconclusive results in previous studies. This paper offers new evidence on the relationship between native self-employment and the self-employment decision of immigrants and their descendants. We argue that the previous literature has neglected to account for different proxies of entrepreneurial behavior and for determinants of self-employment in the country of origin. We find mixed evidence of a significant relationship between entrepreneurial activity of US immigrants and two different measures of entrepreneurial activity in their respective countries of origin. Our findings suggest that differences in self-employment across immigrants of different origin are to some degree an expression of the behavior acquired under varying economic and institutional environments.

Gender Differences in Self-employment of Older Workers in the United States and New Zealand

Gender Differences in Self-employment of Older Workers in the United States and New Zealand

Self-employment of immigrants and natives in Sweden – a multilevel analysis

Recent research suggests that self-employment among immigrants is due to a combination of multiple situational, cultural and institutional factors, all acting together. Using multilevel regression and unique data on the entire population of Sweden for the year 2007, this study attempts to quantify the relative importance for the self-employed of embeddedness in ethnic contexts (country of birth) and regional business and public regulatory frameworks (labour market areas). This information indicates whether the layers under consideration are valid constructs of the surroundings that influence individual self-employment. The results show that 10% (women) and 8% (men) of the total variation in individual differences in self-employment can be attributed to the country of birth. When labour market areas are included in the analyses, the share of the total variation increases to 14% for women and 12% for men. The results show that the ethnic context and the economic environment play a minor role in understanding individual differences in self-employment levels. The results can have important implications when planning interventions or other actions focusing on self-employment as public measures to promote self-employment often are based on geographic areas and ethnic contexts.

Regional Differences in Self-Employment: Evidence from Croatia

The transition in most countries was accompanied by the burst of unemployment. At the beginning of transition, the new opportunities to start own businesses were expected to release the entrepreneurship potential of the population and lead to fast convergence towards the successful market economies. At the same time, entrepreneurship was expected to alleviate the labour shedding from restructured inefficient industrial sector. The data seldom corroborates this successful transition scenario. This paper provides analysis of the regional differences in self-employment in Croatia during the mature transition 1998-2008 period. Although self-employment cannot be equalized with entrepreneurship, Labour Force Survey as relatively rich data source enables investigation of certain factors that might be partially related to the overall entrepreneurship propensity of the working population in Croatia. Furthermore, analysis of potential regional differences in Croatian labour force entrepreneurship propensity has not been previously quantitatively assessed in the literature. The regional perspective in the paper is used to investigate whether there is a link between the evolution of self-employment and overall unemployment rate in the region (does self-employment help to alleviate unemployment problems?), the share of public sector employment (do chances of finding a secure government job impede entrepreneurship?), economic structure of the region (which economic sectors are more likely to encourage self-employment?) through time. In addition, the characteristics of the self-employed - in terms of gender, age, occupation, education, wage, household characteristics – are compared to those in employment. With this segment of the analysis we try to reveal whether there is higher entrepreneurship propensity within certain population subgroups in Croatia.

The Self-Employment of Immigrants and Natives in Sweden

Earlier studies on entrepreneurship and self-employment among immigrants call attention to the fact that also the for self-employment or entrepreneurs consists of a supply and demand side as well as the interaction between these two. More recent research suggests that a mix of personal resources, the surrounding structural context of markets, competition and the current political and economic environment, all acting together are seen as determining factors affecting self-employment by immigrants. However, few studies have been able to quantify the importance of these different aspects that determine ethnic self-employment. The central aim of this paper is therefore, by using multilevel regression, to quantify the role the country of birth respectively labour market area plays for understanding individual differences in self-employment. Using register data on individuals for the year of 2007 for the entire Swedish population we have in this study a unique opportunity to quantify the relative importance of the self-employers embeddedness in the social and ethnic networks (country of birth) and the regional business and public regulatory framework (labour market areas) measured. Our results suggest that of the total variation in individual differences in self-employment can 14 % (men) respectively 16 % (women) be attributed to the ethnic group and the labour market area. Furthermore, the ethnical groups accounted for 70 % (men) and 78 % (women) of this higher level variance. These results show that the social and ethnical context (measured by country of birth) and the economic environment (measured by local labour market areas) played a minor role for understanding individual differences in self-employment. These results can have important implications when planning interventions or other actions focusing on self-employment. Focusing only on ethnical groups/labour market areas might be inefficient as approximately 85 % of the variation is not explained by ethnical groups/labour market areas. Instead more general approaches or interventions focusing on other groups that capture a larger part of the variation might be more efficient.

Black-White Gap in Self-Employment in the U.S.: Do Cohort and within Race Differences Exist?

In this paper we ask three questions: First, is there evidence of a Black-White gap in self-employment between 1994-2002 and could the inclusion of the White immigrant population be driving this result? Second, do within race differences in self-employment exist among the U.S. born? Finally, do cohort differences in the Black-White self-employment gap exist among the U.S. born? These questions are based on some of the regression findings in our earlier paper focused on the role of information and institutions in understanding the Black-White gap in self-employment. We find that the Black-White self-employment gap is not driven by the existence of White immigrants in the data set. In addition, we find that within race and cohort differences exist in the Black-White self-employment gap. A subgroup of U.S. born African-Americans have a self-employment probability that is identical to that of U.S. born White-Americans. In addition, younger cohorts of African-Americans have a much smaller self-employment gap than do older African-Americans.

Self-Employment Among Immigrants in Sweden – An Analysis of Intragroup Differences

This paper examines intragroup differences in self-employment within different immigrant groups and the native population in Sweden with the help of 1990 Census data. Intragroup differences are observed among all the groups. The study shows that differences in self-employment rates between individuals with different educational attainment exist for some of the immigrant groups. For immigrants from Southern Europe and non-European immigrants as well as for natives, the propensity for self-employment is lower among individuals with higher education. Furthermore, the study also shows that there are intragroup differences defined by gender and point in time for immigration. Finally, the study observes small differences in self-employment earnings within the different immigrant groups.

Hispanic Self-Employment: Does Gender Matter?

With the increase in female self-employment, there is a need to examine the intersection between race/ethnicity and gender. This study examined whether gender differences in income exist for self-employed Hispanics residing in California using data from the 1990 U.S. decennial census. Theories stressing human capital, social capital, and acculturation were combined and income equations were estimated separately for Hispanic self-employed men and Hispanic self-employed women. The sample consisted of 7,760 Hispanic self-employed persons (64% self-employed men versus 36% self-employed women). Multiple regression analysis suggests income differences in self-employment do exist by gender. For example, having less than a high school education relative to being a high school graduate decreased self-employment income for both men and women, but the effect was larger for men. Furthermore, decomposition analysis suggests income differences between genders are due both to differences in worker characteristics and rates of return to these characteristics.

Immigrant self-employment in Sweden - its variation and some possible determinants

This paper examines self-employment among immigrants in Sweden. There are differences in the self-employment rate between immigrants and the native population and between different immigrant groups, both in the raw data and after controlling for variables such as age, gender, education and civil status. The study shows that non-Nordic immigrants in Sweden who arrived at an early date have higher self-employment rates than the native population. It seems as if self-employment among immigrants is to some extent positively correlated with time elapsed after arrival in the country. A number of possible explanations for the observed differences in self-employment between immigrants and natives and between different immigrant groups are presented in the study. Plausible explanations for the observed differences in self-employment rates are differences in traditions from the home country, differences in the labour market situation, and often a lack of knowledge among immigrants about the practical and formal matters an individual encounters when trying to establish a business.

Male/Female Earnings Differences in Self-Employment: The Effects of Marriage, Children, and the Household Division of Labor

Data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics are used to investigate reasons for the gender earnings gap among the self-employed. Compared to organizational employment, self-employment may allow workers freer adjustment of work effort in response to changing needs for market work income and household production. Consistent with that hypothesis, the analysis shows that self-employed women's earnings declined with marriage, family size, and hours of housework, whereas self-employed men's earnings increased with marriage and family size. Organizationally employed workers' earnings exhibited a similar but less pronounced pattern, suggesting that in the self-employment sector the structure of female/male relative earnings was more sensitive to family size and composition. Self-employed women and men specialized more intensively in housework and market work, respectively. Women apparently tended to choose self-employment to facilitate household production, and men to achieve higher earnings.