Self-employed professionals in the European labour market. A comparison between Italy, Germany and the UK

Borghi, Paolo; Mori, Anna; Semenza, Renata

doi:10.1177/1024258918761564

Cited by 19 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…In some cases, it is also possible to identify "dependent self-employed workers, " who do not have neither employees nor economic autonomy and control over their business (Eichhorst et al, 2013;Eurofound, 2017;Mondon-Navazo, 2017). However, beyond these classifications, statistics do not currently allow for consideration of the high heterogeneity of solo self-employment, where we can find genuine self-employment, but also a growing precariousness (including among workers who enjoy working as freelancers), as well as bogus or imposed false selfemployment (Schulze Buschoff and Schmidt, 2009;Westerveld, 2012;Leighton, 2015;Borghi et al, 2018;Conen and Schippers, 2019). Moreover, these conditions may occur to the same person, and possibly even simultaneously, especially to those people who perform different jobs at the same time.…”

Section: Trends and Heterogeneity Of Solo Self-employmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hybrid Areas of Work Between Employment and Self-Employment: Emerging Challenges and Future Research Directions

et al. 2020

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The growth of non-standard employment relations has created one of the major challenges in terms of workers' rights as well as collective representation in European societies. Among non-standard employment relations, so-called "solo self-employed"-self-employed workers without employees-are challenging the very foundations of our labor markets, that is to say the opposition between employers and employees, fostering the development of emerging "hybrid" areas of work. The heterogeneity of the solo self-employed is difficult to capture from official statistics, which are still based on traditional classifications, and questions also the legal categories that qualify these workers. Moreover, the fact that solo self-employed workers do not form a homogenous group, and are diverse in terms of their activities, interests and needs, calls for changes in the way trade unions, employer organizations, and new freelancer associations develop collective actions, claims-making activities, and strategies of organizing. With the aim to achieve an in-depth understanding of the increasingly extensive and populated categories of the solo self-employed, this contribution aims at reconstructing the state of the art within different fields of study, such as employment relations, labor law, industrial relations and social movements, and at offering some possible future research directions.

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Section: Trends and Heterogeneity Of Solo Self-employmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hybrid Areas of Work Between Employment and Self-Employment: Emerging Challenges and Future Research Directions

et al. 2020

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“…As for those voluntarily in dependent self-employment, besides the recognition of a third hybrid category which has started to be adopted by some countries (e.g., Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal), measures aiming to extend their limited rights can be pursued. As a comparative study on self-employed professionals in Italy, Germany and UK concluded, there is a need for a more universal social protection system to reduce the gap between those in selfemployment and those in dependent employment (Borghi et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the working conditions of the dependent self-employed

Horodnic

Williams

2019

IJEBR

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Purpose In recent years, there has been a concern that employers are falsely classifying employees as self-employed to evade collective agreements and labour laws (e.g. minimum wages, working time legislation and protection in case of redundancy), and the result is that these dependent self-employed suffer poorer working conditions. The purpose of this paper is to provide an extensive evaluation of the working conditions of those in dependent self-employment compared with the genuine self-employed. Design/methodology/approach To do so, data are reported from a 2015 European Working Conditions Survey of 35,765 workers in 28 European Union member states. Findings Of the 4.3 per cent of the working population found to be in dependent self-employment, the finding is that they have similar working conditions to the genuine self-employed in terms of their physical and social environment and intensity of work. However, they have poorer job prospects and less ability to use their skills and discretion than the genuine self-employed. In terms of the working time quality, meanwhile, the finding is that they have better conditions than the genuine self-employed. Therefore, this analysis uncovers the need for a more nuanced understanding of the relative working conditions of the dependent self-employed. Research limitations/implications If the working conditions of the dependent self-employed are to be tackled, evaluation is now required of whether the current policy approaches, such as developing a hybrid category of employment with legal rights attached, address the specific working conditions that are worse for the dependent self-employed. Originality/value This is one of the few papers which provides an extensive evaluation of the working conditions of those in dependent self-employment in the EU28.

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“…In Western economies, the transition to a service economy, supported by the use of information technologies and digital platforms, has modified traditional 2. This includes the growing instability of professional careers (Bologna, 2007;Ranci, 2012), limited inclusion in the welfare system compared to employees (Semenza et al, 2017;Borghi et al, 2018) and low income for a significant number of professional self-employed workers (Di Nunzio and Toscano, 2015). independent professions and created new ones.…”

Section: Independent Professionals In Europementioning

confidence: 99%

“…These changes have fostered the proliferation of highly qualified and specialized self-employed in many areas of the tertiary activity sector. The cross-country analysis of this phenomenon in Europe (Borghi et al, 2018) has highlighted three critical aspects: uncertain legal status, weak social protection and the large fragmentation of collective representation in environments of strong individualization of employment relationships. In the European research (I-WIRE, 2016), there are some signs of a better awareness of the challenges arising in these new labour markets.…”

Section: Independent Professionals In Europementioning

confidence: 99%

Labour market segmentation: the economic condition of independent professionals in Italy and Argentina

Semenza¹,

Sarti

2018

PapRevSoc

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This article focuses on the conditions of professional self-employed in the European and Latin American labour markets, whose increase is linked to the expansion of the on-demand service economy. Moving from a critique to the traditional segmentation theory, this group of highly skilled self-employed-an expression of the upper-middle class and post-industrial work-can be considered halfway between market and hierarchy, HR internalization and outsourcing. Dealing with social inequalities, the research questions are whether the conditions of these independent professionals who are characterized, on average, by higher levels of education and who work in the advanced service sectors) are comparable to employees and whether there are similar trends in the two contexts (specifically Italy and Argentina). The article presents empirical evidence on occupational income (as a dependent variable) to measure how working condition changes when controlling for socio-demographic characteristics (as independent variables) and occupation (self-employed or employee). Income levels were compared using two datasets: EPH-INDEC (Permanent Household Survey) for Argentina and ITA-SILC for Italy. Despite the limitations due to problems of comparison in the classification of occupations, the analysis highlights differences between the two countries linked to a dissimilar expansion of the service economy, professional services and outsourcing of high-skilled competences. Moreover, within a frame of high income inequalities in self-employment, graduate independent professionals in Argentina seem to retain a stronger economic performance, while in Italy they show lower earnings than other occupations, thus suggesting an unequal labour market impact of higher education in the two countries. Resumen. La segmentación del mercado de trabajo: la condición económica de los profesionales autónomos en Italia y ArgentinaEl artículo se centra en las condiciones de los trabajadores autónomos profesionales en los mercados laborales europeos y latinoamericanos, cuyo aumento está vinculado al desarrollo de la economía de servicios. Realizando una crítica a la tradicional teoría de segmentación, este grupo de trabajadores independientes altamente cualificados, expresión de la clase media alta y del trabajo postindustrial, se puede considerar a medio camino entre el mercado y la jerarquía, entre la internalización de recursos humanos y la subcontratación. Considerando las desigualdades sociales, la pregunta es si las condiciones de estos profesionales independientes, caracterizados por niveles de educación más altos y que trabajan en los sectores de servicios avanzados, son comparables a las de los empleados (específicamente en Italia y Argentina). El artículo investiga el ingreso laboral (como variable dependiente) para evaluar cómo ello cambia considerando la ocupación (autónomo o empleado) y las características sociodemográficas (como variables independientes). La comparación de los ingresos se realizó utilizando dos conjuntos de datos: EPH-INDEC (Encues...

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Self-employed professionals in the European labour market. A comparison between Italy, Germany and the UK

Cited by 19 publications

References 9 publications

Hybrid Areas of Work Between Employment and Self-Employment: Emerging Challenges and Future Research Directions

Hybrid Areas of Work Between Employment and Self-Employment: Emerging Challenges and Future Research Directions

Evaluating the working conditions of the dependent self-employed

Labour market segmentation: the economic condition of independent professionals in Italy and Argentina

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