What’s up with the self-employed? A cross-national perspective on the self-employed’s work-related mental well-being

Abstract

Although many governments actively stimulate self-employment, their work-related mental well-being remains understudied. The aim of current study is to investigate the mental well-being of different types of self-employed, testing whether mental well-being differences among self-employed are explained by the presence of work characteristics that are in accordance with the ideal-typical image of the “successful entrepreneur” (e.g. creativity, willingness to take risks, innovativeness, high intrinsic motivation, skilfulness and the ability of recognizing opportunities). Moreover, we investigate the relation of country-level “entrepreneurial climate” and the individual mental well-being of self-employed. For this purpose, data from the European Working Conditions Survey, round 6 (2015) was analysed, including 5448 cases, originating from the 28 EU-member states. Multilevel random intercepts modelling was used to investigate associations of both individual- and country-level characteristics with mental well-being. We found that motivation, the ability to recognize opportunities, and finding it easy to be self-employed positively influences the mental well-being of self-employed. Respondents with these characteristics are often medium-big employers, while farmers, dependent freelancers and own account workers generally have less of these features and tend to have lower levels of mental well-being. At the country-level, positive entrepreneurship perception relates to more advantageous mental health scores in self-employed. These results implicate that policies promoting self-employment should be (more) concerned with the work-related characteristics of (future) self-employed.

Key Risk Factors Affecting Farmers’ Mental Health: A Systematic Review

“…Wheeler et al [26] identified that some Australian irrigators experienced high levels of psychological distress nationally; higher than dryland farmers or the Australian population. Gevaert et al [85] found farmers, self-employed, and own account workers have worse mental health compared to medium-to-large employers and liberal professions. Ulrich et al [102] identified that stress was significantly higher in farmworkers compared with non-farmworkers only in one farming period.…”

“…Age of farmers and the association with mental health issues has been discussed in-depth in the literature. Overall, younger farmers experienced higher levels of stress-related symptoms [62,85,88,179]. This was most likely associated with higher debt levels.…”

What Predicts Stable Mental Health in the 18–29 Age Group Compared to Older Age Groups? Results from the Stockholm Public Health Cohort 2002–2014

“…Running one’s own business—i.e., being self-employed—seems to be of pronounced importance for the older group and their stability in mental health. Gevaert et al investigated the phenomenon of self-employed people’s wellbeing in 28 European countries [75]. Their findings highlight individual characteristics, such as motivation and the ability to identify opportunities, and, furthermore, that medium and large employers present high levels of wellbeing, but not self-employed in dependencies, such as farmers and freelancers.…”

The Impact of Career Insight in the Relation with Social Networks and Career Self-Management: Preliminary Evidences from the Italian Contamination Lab

“…Recently, worldwide Governments started promoting self-employment [8]. The EU 2020 Employment Strategy is significant in this regard: it recognizes entrepreneurship and self-employment as key factors for achieving smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and as a way to create new jobs [9].…”

“…The EU 2020 Employment Strategy recognizes entrepreneurship and self-employment as key factors for achieving sustainable, smart and inclusive growth and as a way to create new jobs [9]. In this framework, young people continue to be challenged by the unpredictability of the labor market since a mismatch between the skills possessed, acquired during the training, and those required by employers [8]. Also, the concept of career is assuming different meanings.…”