Self-employment and Subjective Well-Being

Abstract

Self-employment contributes to employment growth and innovativeness and many individuals want to become self-employed due to the autonomy and flexibility it brings. Using "subjective well-being" as a broad summary measure that evaluates an individual's experience of being self-employed, the chapter discusses evidence and explanations why self-employment is positively associated with job satisfaction, even though the self-employed often earn less than their employed peers, work longer hours and experience more stress and higher job demands.Despite being more satisfied with their jobs, the self-employed do not necessarily enjoy higher overall life satisfaction, which is due to heterogeneity of types of self-employment, as well as motivational factors, work characteristics and institutional setups across countries.

Being your own boss and bossing others: the moderating effect of managing others on work meaning and autonomy for the self-employed and employees

“…These results may seem paradoxical at first. Nevertheless, they are in line with empirical evidence suggesting that solo entrepreneurs may lack social support (Binder & Blankenberg, 2021) but have more significant preferences for autonomy (van Stel & van der Zwan, 2020). 3, Model (7), and include all controls, fixed effects, and entropy balancing weights.…”

Being Your Own Boss and Bossing Others: The Moderating Effect of Managing Others on Work Meaning and Autonomy for the Self-Employed and Employees

“…These results may seem paradoxical at first. Nevertheless, they are in line with empirical evidence suggesting that solo entrepreneurs may lack social support (Binder & Blankenberg, 2021) but have more significant preferences for autonomy (van Stel & van der Zwan, 2020). Notes: The figure depicts the predicted autonomy for salaried employees and the self-employed, according to supervisor status.…”

Solo self‐employment––Key policy challenges

“…The empirical studies on subjective well-being tend to demonstrate that, compared with employees, self-employed individuals report higher levels of job satisfaction and satisfaction with their life in general (for overviews of recent research, see Stephan, 2018;Binder, 2018;Van der Zwan & Hessels, 2019;Ryff, 2019;Binder & Blankenberg, 2021). The prevailing view is that by engaging in entrepreneurship, people obtain additional well-being benefits not granted to paid employees.…”