Likelihood Of Self-employment Research Articles

The resilient self-employability of women and senior people after sudden economic shocks

AbstractIn recent times, various crises have negatively affected the financial stability, job security, and health of countless individuals. According to research, different factors that operate at both the individual and contextual levels can play a prominent role in influencing people's self-employment during periods of economic downturn. This study investigates the changes in the likelihood of self-employment by gender and age across various contexts following sudden shocks. By analyzing the intersection of occupational choice and business cycle theories, this research offers insights into how crises affect people's ability to work for themselves. Using a sample of over 250,000 individuals from sixteen countries and applying a multilevel binary logistic regression analysis, the results confirm that women and older individuals are less inclined to be self-employed in general. However, unexpected economic recessions may lead to a slight increase in their likelihood of self-employment. Furthermore, when women and seniors live in a higher GDP per capita context, this context positively moderates the relationship between gender, age, and the propensity for entrepreneurship. These findings offer valuable insights for policymakers seeking to promote resilient self-employment among vulnerable individuals for post-crisis recovery.

Volunteering in the Creation of Entrepreneurship

Abstract We propose that volunteering increases the likelihood of self-employment among young adults because volunteering improves self-esteem, which helps prospective entrepreneurs cope with the challenges associated with self-employment. We further predict that young adults who participate in diverse voluntary organizations are particularly likely to undertake self-employment because affiliations with diverse organizations not only enhance the social-psychological benefits of self-employment but also buffer the potential loss of a source of self-esteem caused by the discontinuation of a voluntary organization. Analysis of the data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 35,228) supports our hypotheses. Our study highlights that a better-developed self through volunteering benefits the agentic action of entrepreneurship.

The determinants of self-employment entry of Palestinian youth

PurposeThis paper aims to study the impact of micro-level socio-economic, demographic and geographical factors on the likelihood of self-employment entry of young adults in Palestine and filling a gap in the analysis of determinants of self-employment for young adults in Palestine.Design/methodology/approachThe research design is based on a multinomial logistic (MNL) model and on the testing of seven hypotheses deriving from the review of the theoretical and empirical literature, using a micro-level longitudinal data set from the Palestinian Labour Force Surveys (PLFS) between 2009 and 2016. In the analysis, the dependent variable (employment status) is a discrete variable that takes four unordered and independent outcomes: wage employee, self-employed, employer and unpaid family member.FindingsThis study has strong evidence that the likelihood of self-employment increases with age. However, results are inconsistent with the well-known curvilinear relationship between age and self-employment. Regarding the role of gender, results show that young men are more likely to become self-employed than young women. Results indicate that there is a significant and negative impact of an increasing level of education on self-employment entry for both youth and the whole population. On the opposite, training after graduation increases the likelihood of self-employment entry for youth with high education level. Besides, this paper finds that young workers living in urban areas have more likelihood to enter self-employment than those in rural areas and young workers in Gaza have more likelihood to enter self-employment than their counterparts in West Bank.Practical implicationsFirst, in both West Bank and Gaza, young women are less inclined to actively engage in self-employment, which confirms structural inequalities between men and women. Therefore, this study calls for social protection programmes and for national programmes that would promote and develop women’s self-employment. Second, because this paper finds that youth self-employment is more an opportunity-driven phenomenon than a necessity-driven one, this study calls for programmes that provide youth with small business grants and training on entrepreneurship and business models.Originality/valueInsights are valuable as both government institutions and universities and entrepreneurial startups can benefit from knowing which factors contribute to the self-employment likelihood of youth in Palestine and use the policy recommendations to develop capacity-building programmes to provide the youth and women with skills and competencies which enable them to turn to self-employment.

What Brings Female Professionals to Entrepreneurship? Exploring the Antecedents of Women’s Professional Entrepreneurship

This study explores how female professionals engage in starting their own businesses, known as professional entrepreneurship. In particular, this study specifies what factors foster the likelihood of self-employment of female professionals. Drawing upon the push and pull theories of entrepreneurship, we argue that individual capabilities (as a pull factor) make the self-employment of female professionals less likely, while discrimination experiences (as a push factor) make the self-employment of female professionals more likely. Given such bifurcated effects of these factors, we examine the combinatory effects of individual capabilities and discrimination experiences (which are specified as attribute-based and family-based discrimination experiences) on the rate of self-employment of female professionals. With a sample of 1356 female lawyers in the U.S., we test our hypotheses predicting the rate of self-employment with respect to prior salary and discrimination experiences. Our results reveal that prior salary (a pull factor) motivates female lawyers to stay at the traditional law firms, whereas attribute-based discrimination experiences (a push factor) motivate them to open their own office. Furthermore, we find that such a push effect is pronounced only among the female lawyers with lower salaries. Then, the empirical findings are discussed to elaborate the process of female professionals’ entrepreneurship.

Self-employment and reason for migration: are those who migrate for asylum different from other migrants?

This paper explores differences in the likelihood of engaging in self-employment among migrants who moved for different reasons to the UK. The results suggest that, conditional on being in employment, those who initially migrated for asylum reasons are six percentage points more likely to engage in self-employment than the UK-born, while those who migrated for work reasons are not significantly different from UK-born workers in this regard. We also find that mediating factors, such as the presence of networks and years since migration, relate differently to the likelihood of self-employment for each group of migrants. Finally, there are also differences when looking at the number of persons employed by the self-employed and the skill level associated with the activity of self-employment. Those who migrated for asylum are not significantly different from the UK-born in their likelihood of employing someone else, while those who migrated for work are two percentage points less likely to employ others relative to the UK-born.

The Prevention – Coercion Model of Physical and Mental Health and Self-Employment Likelihood

The Prevention – Coercion Model of Physical and Mental Health and Self-Employment Likelihood

Learning Management through Matching: A Field Experiment Using Mechanism Design

We place young professionals into established firms to shadow middle managers. Using random assignment into program participation, we find positive average effects on wage employment, but no average effect on the likelihood of self-employment. We match individuals to firms using a deferred-acceptance algorithm, and show how this allows us to identify heterogeneous treatment effects by firm and intern characteristics. We find striking heterogeneity in self-employment effects, and show that some assignment mechanisms can substantially outperform random matching in generating employment and income effects. These results demonstrate the potential for matching algorithms to improve the design of field experiments.

Racing to get self-employed? Life history models and self-employment

Abstract Entrepreneurship research has shown that self-employment is a result of individual, environmental, and social factors, however, there is a limited understanding of whether the extent of coalescence of these factors over time is associated with self-employment. Using Life History Theory, we examine whether a single Super-K factor, encompassing general health, social relationships, and general personality factors, is related to self-employment. Results indicate that the Super-K factor is positively associated with the likelihood of self-employment, and that self-employment partially mediates the path between Super-K and income. However, the effect size is small, but not negligible, for the likelihood of self-employment. Our results also indicate the negligible overarching role of life time accumulation of health, social relationships, and personality on income through self-employment.

Entrepreneurship perception among vulnerable population groups in Romania

Abstract This paper aims to explore the entrepreneurship perception among diverse populations in Romania typically seen as vulnerable. It also aims to provide support regarding how the concept might be useful in considering and designing alternative policy interventions. The vulnerable population groups studied in the paper differ by age (seniors), gender (females), income (low income population) and residence (rural community). The paper attempts to answer three research questions: (1) how attitudes towards entrepreneurship differ among vulnerable population groups; (2) how intention of starting a business varies among studied population; and (3) what is the likelihood and desirability of studied population to consider entrepreneurship as a career choice. The data analysed in the paper are extracted from the Amway Global Entrepreneurship Report (AGER) developed for Romania, for the period 2014-2016. Analysis is conducted by taken into consideration the following dimensions of the “entrepreneurship perception”: attitude towards entrepreneurship, intention of starting a business, entrepreneurship as a career choice, and likelihood of self-employment. The paper aims to contribute to advancing research on the less addressed and less understood entrepreneurship perception among vulnerable populations. In the paper we make recommendations for governmental institutions that are meant to contribute to designing policy interventions that will nurture entrepreneurship spirit in Romania.

Non-formal adult education for selfemployment: the importance of posttrainingsupport for micro-enterprise development in South Africa

Non-formal adult education for selfemployment: the importance of posttrainingsupport for micro-enterprise development in South Africa Celestin Mayombe (Received 30 March 2016; accepted 22 February 2017) Abstract The concern that informed this article is that adults who face long-term unemployment due to a lack of marketable skills remain unemployed after completing adult non-formal education (NFE) programmes in South Africa. The purpose of the article is to investigate major challenges trainees of NFE programmes for self-employment encounter in starting and growing small businesses, and the types of post-training support they receive from public and private institutions in KwaZulu- Natal (KZN) province. While the structure of the South African economy is at fault, the findings reveal that weak institutional linkages result in trainees not having access to essential post-training support, community resources, public goods and services. The author concludes that centre managers did not take into consideration the importance of institutional linkages and the socioeconomic background of the trainees who have faced long-term unemployment and poverty leading to social isolation, which then further reduce the likelihood of self-employment.

Testosterone and Tendency to Engage in Self-Employment

Does testosterone increase the tendency to engage in self-employment? The results presented to date have been mixed. Using three different studies, we provide additional evidence on the relationship between testosterone and self-employment. Drawing on a cross section of 2,146 individuals (1,178 males and 968 females) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys’ 2011–2012 sample, and controlling for endogeneity (with red blood cell count, percentage hematocrit, and zinc supplement intake in the past 30 days as instruments), we find that serum testosterone levels are positively associated with self-employment for males (marginally significant, two-tailed test). As testosterone levels could be affected by social, economic, and biological factors during one’s life course, we draw more robust inferences by assessing whether the 2D:4D digit ratio, a marker of prenatal testosterone exposure, influences the likelihood of self-employment. From Understanding Society’s Innovation Panel Wave 6, we tested separate models for 449 males and 525 females, and our results indicate that males (respectively, females) with a lower 2D:4D ratio in their left hand, or higher prenatal testosterone exposure, have a significantly greater (respectively, marginally significant) likelihood of self-employment (two-tailed test). Finally, we examine the twin testosterone transfer effect in a sample of opposite-sex and same-sex twins from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States and provide additional support for the marginally significant (two-tailed test) positive association between testosterone and self-employment. Data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2664 . This paper was accepted by Toby Stuart, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Responsibility or autonomy: children and the probability of self-employment in the USA

This paper studies the effect of children on the likelihood of self-employment. Having children can change preferences that are central to the decision whether to be self-employed. On the one hand, individuals’ preference for autonomy and flexibility increases when having children, which increases the willingness to be self-employed. On the other hand, having children entails a responsibility over someone else, which increases individual risk aversion and decreases the willingness to be self-employed. Using a pooled cross section of 26 years from the General Social Survey, instrumental variable estimates indicate that, in the USA, having children under the age of 18 in the household decreases the likelihood of being self-employed by 11 % (i.e., the responsibility effect dominates). This effect is considerable as a child decreases the probability of self-employment more than the increase associated with being raised by a self-employed father—one of the main determinants of self-employment.

Skin Tone and Self-Employment: Is there an Intra-Group Variation among Blacks?

The purpose of this paper is to formally evaluate whether odds of entry into self-employment decrease as skin tone darkens for Blacks in the United States. Extending past work on inter-group differences in Black-White self-employment, based on data from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, with darker skin tone the odds of self-employment decline. Having spent more time in labor force further decreases the likelihood of self-employment for darker skin tone Blacks, and being a high-school graduate, scoring high on Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), or higher past year income are not associated with self-employment of darker skin tone Blacks. While darker skin tone Blacks who are self-employed derive lower income, those who are self-employed and with more human capital (longer time spent in the labor force, scoring high on ASVAB or being a high school graduate) have a higher income.

Instant gratification: temporal discounting and self-employment

Differences in temporal discounting could separate self-employed individuals from employees working for wages. Drawing on a sample of 13,198 individuals, from the 2012–2013 cross-sectional STEP Skills Measurement Survey, we find that higher temporal discounting is more positively associated with the likelihood of self-employment. We further find that younger individuals with higher temporal discounting are more likely to engage in self-employment. The association of lower socioeconomic status at a young age or those who experienced economic shocks at a young age with the likelihood of self-employment is only significant when interaction effects of temporal discounting and age are present in the model. Risk seeking is not associated with the likelihood of engagement in self-employment under higher discounting. These findings have implications for the self-employment literature as well as the literature on behavioral decision making.

Push or Pull: Changes in the Relative Risk and Growth of Entrepreneurship Among Older Households.

Amid insufficient retirement savings and the growing need to work longer, it is important to understand why self-employment, especially entrepreneurship, has grown among older households. Older households may have been pushed into entrepreneurship by the growing risks of wage-and-salary employment as wages and jobs have become less stable. Alternatively, older households may have been pulled into entrepreneurship as the associated risks have declined, for instance, due to greater opportunities to diversify income away from risky business income. We examine the economic causes of the rise in entrepreneurship among older households. We use summary statistics and multinomial logit regressions to analyze the link between economic pressures in wage-and-salary employment, financial strength of entrepreneurship, and the presence and change of entrepreneurship among older households-aged 50 years or older. We use household data from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances from 1989 to 2013. We find little support for the claim that increased economic pressures are correlated with rising entrepreneurship. Instead, our results suggest that the growth of older entrepreneurship is coincident with increasing access to dividend and interest income. We also find some evidence that access to Social Security and other annuity benefits increases the likelihood of self-employment. Implications: Entrepreneurship among older households increasingly correlates with income diversification. Policymakers interested in encouraging more entrepreneurship among older households could consider increased access to income diversification through social insurance.

Economic Freedom and the Affordable Care Act

A greater level of government involvement in the financing of health care is generally viewed unfavorably by organizations monitoring economic freedom. However, increased government provision of health insurance could be associated with improved economic freedom through enhanced labor market mobility. For example, job-lock alleviation accompanying a public insurance expansion could lead to increased innovation or a higher likelihood of self-employment. In this article, we use the Affordable Care Act (ACA)’s recent Medicaid expansions to examine the effect of an increase in public health insurance provision on labor market outcomes by gender and race/ethnicity. Our results lend support to the notion that state Medicaid expansions are associated with improved labor market autonomy for white men and white women; however, we find mixed results for black and Hispanic men and women. Notably, our findings cast doubt on earlier claims that the ACA would lead to large reductions in labor force participation and employment.

Entrepreneurial skills and wage employment

Purpose – Promotion of entrepreneurial skills is often considered as an adequate policy to enhance job creation and economic growth. However, neither the definition of entrepreneurial skills, nor the costs and benefits of such a policy are clear. The purpose of this paper is to check whether the benefits of entrepreneurial skills extent beyond self-employment. The authors denote entrepreneurial skills as those competencies that enhance the likelihood of self-employment. Then the authors analyze whether they are rewarded in wage employment. Design/methodology/approach – The authors estimate a Heckman selection model with wages in a salaried job as the main dependent variable and working in wage employment vs self-employment as the selection equation. The authors use a sample of higher education graduates from Spain, from the year 2000 interviewed in 2005 within the REFLEX survey. Findings – Results reveal that alertness to new opportunities, ability to mobilize others and knowledge of other fields are the competencies that enhance self-employment in Spain. Yet, these skills are not rewarded in a salaried job. Therefore, benefits of policies fostering entrepreneurial skills do not extend to wage employment in Spain. Research limitations/implications – The exclusion restriction used in the analysis is father’s education. The authors assume that all the effect of parental education on wages goes through education attainment of the individual and her ability (proxied by her grade in secondary education). A better proxy for ability would be desirable. Originality/value – The authors identify which competencies enhance self-employment in Spain. The authors find that these competencies are not rewarded in wage employment, so the benefits of policies promoting entrepreneurial education remain within self-employment activity only.

Entrepreneurial Skills and Wage Employment

Promotion of entrepreneurial skills among the population is often considered as an adequate policy to enhance job creation and economic growth. However, neither the definition of entrepreneurial skills, nor the costs and benefits of such a policy are clear. Our aim is to check whether the benefits of entrepreneurial skills extent beyond self-employment. We use a sample of higher education graduates from Spain, from the year 2000 interviewed in 2005 (REFLEX survey). We denote entrepreneurial skills as those competencies that enhance the likelihood of self-employment. Then we analyze whether they are rewarded in wage employment. We find that alertness to new opportunities, ability to mobilize others and knowledge of other fields are the competencies that enhance self-employment in Spain. Yet, these skills are not rewarded in a salaried job. Therefore, benefits of policies fostering entrepreneurial skills do not extend to wage employment in Spain.

Beyond the Ivory Tower: Labor Market Returns to Greek Membership

Using a nationally representative sample of college graduates, we estimate the post-collegiate labor market effects of fraternity and sorority membership during undergraduate tenure. We find that, after controlling for relevant factors, former sorority members’ labor market outcomes are indistinguishable from those of other female college graduates. Former fraternity membership, however, appears to result in an increased likelihood of self-employment of about 10 percentage points and a sizable wage premium. Former fraternity members are indistinguishable from other male college graduates in terms of labor market status, historical unemployment, subjective beliefs of personal job security, job satisfaction, and satisfaction with earnings.

Is college education worth it? Evidence from its impacts on entrepreneurship in the United States

Using the Current Population Survey (CPS) March Supplement data between 1989 and 2011, the article examines the impacts of college education on the likelihood of self-employment and on entrepreneurs' annual income in the United States. The primary results suggest that individuals with college education are more likely to have their own businesses than those without; entrepreneurs with college education receive a significantly higher annual income than those without. Specifically, college education is more effective in promoting Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs than other ethnic groups. Women with a college degree are more inclined to be self-employed and earn more than those without college education. However, the influences of college education are stronger for men than for women on self-employment and annual income.