This article aims to investigate how job satisfaction varies for different types of self-employment classified on the basis of working conditions – genuine vs. dependent – and the motivation to enter ...self-employment – voluntary vs. involuntary – in different institutional contexts. First, it analyses how job satisfaction is affected by the cumulative experience of different forms of economic and operational dependency, and by the involuntariness of entering self-employment. Second, it studies how differences in job satisfaction between types of self-employment are modulated by the country's entrepreneurship support environment. The analyses are based on the 2017 ad-hoc module on self-employment of the EU-LFS. Results show that the negative consequences of being self-employed on an involuntary basis, the accumulation of forms of dependency, and the lack of business opportunities all influence the job satisfaction of the self-employed without employees and small entrepreneurs.
Affect is increasingly studied within entrepreneurship. We develop a partial mediation model in which positive and negative dispositional affect influences entry into entrepreneurship, suggesting ...that those experiencing greater negative affect experience less job satisfaction and are more likely to enter entrepreneurship. Using a novel methodological approach to capture affective disposition, we test our model on a large panel dataset from Australia, finding support for our hypotheses. These findings provide a much-needed counterbalance to the prevailing focus in entrepreneurship on the positive consequences of positive affect and introduce affect into the study of the fundamental question of why some people but not others become entrepreneurs in the first place.
Entrepreneurship research typically emphasizes firm-level outcomes such as growth and performance. However, people pursue entrepreneurship for deeply personal, idiosyncratic reasons. Therefore, as in ...other self-organized human pursuits, how entrepreneurship relates to fulfillment and well-being is of utmost importance. In this paper, we provide an overview of the well-being concept, related research, and its connection to entrepreneurship. We define entrepreneurial well-being as the experience of satisfaction, positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and psychological functioning in relation to developing, starting, growing, and running an entrepreneurial venture. We explain this definition of entrepreneurial well-being and review significant developments in our field and the broader field of well-being. Highlights of social, technological and institutional trends illustrate key areas for future research that can enhance our understanding of these phenomena. The eight papers in this special issue focus on entrepreneurial well-being each offering a specific perspective on how scholars can theorize and study the antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurship related to well-being.
•The special issue explores the relationship between entrepreneurship and well-being.•We offer a definition of well-being that integrates hedonic and eudaimonic perspectives.•The eight papers in the special issue offer a multidisciplinary view by drawing on various theoretical traditions, data sources, measurement, and empirical approaches.•We offer six directions for future research that call for embedding the conversation in the context of socio-economic change.•We highlight alternative methodological approaches that can be used to explore the topic.
Drawing upon the Job Demand-Control (JDC) model, this study investigates differences in work-related stress between the self-employed and wage workers. The JDC model postulates that job demand ...increases work-related stress, whereas job control reduces it (also by weakening the effect of job demand on work-related stress). Based on this model, we predict that the self-employed experience less work-related stress than wage workers. Empirical analysis of a longitudinal sample from Australia (2005–2013) confirms our expectations and demonstrates that job control fully mediates the negative relationship between self-employment and work-related stress. Further analyses show that self-employed individuals with employees experience more work-related stress than those without employees because of higher job demand.
•The Job Demand-Control model is used to understand origins of work-related stress.•A longitudinal Australian sample (HILDA; 2005–2013) is analyzed.•The self-employed report significantly less work-related stress than wage workers.•Job control fully mediates the relationship between self-employment and stress.•The self-employed with employees report more stress than those without employees.
Relying on theoretical insights from the Job Demand-Control model, which links occupational characteristics to health, this paper provides the first causal evidence of the physical and mental health ...consequences of self-employment. I utilize German longitudinal data for the period 2002–2014 and difference-in-differences estimations to study switches from unemployment to self-employment (necessity entrepreneurship) and transitions from regular- to self-employment (opportunity entrepreneurship). I find that necessity entrepreneurs experience improvements in their mental but not physical health, while opportunity entrepreneurship leads to both physical and mental health gains. Importantly, the health improvements cannot be explained by changes in income or working conditions and are not driven by personality and risk preferences or the local unemployment conditions. As such, the findings highlight an additional non-monetary benefit of self-employment and have implications for entrepreneurship theory and practice, current and would-be entrepreneurs, as well as policy-makers.
Aim
To understand self‐employed long‐term‐care workers' experiences of precariousness, and to unravel how their experiences are shaped at the intersection of gender, class, race, migration and age.
...Background
In the Netherlands, increasing numbers of nurses and nursing aides in long‐term care (LTC) opt for self‐employment. Societal organizations and policy makers express concerns about this development, as self‐employment is seen as a risk factor for poor health. Self‐employment is not necessarily precarious work but can contribute to the precariousness of specific groups. Knowledge about inequities among self‐employed nurses and nursing aides in long‐term care is lacking.
Design
A participatory, qualitative interview study. The research team consisted of four academic researchers and five (un)paid care workers.
Methods
Semi‐structured interviews with 23 self‐employed nurses and nursing aides in LTC (2019–2020). Data were analysed from an intersectional perspective.
Results
First, we describe that feeling precarious as a hired employee—due to increasing workloads, health risks, poverty and discrimination—shapes care workers' choice for self‐employment. Second, we describe inequities between self‐employed care workers who could (financially) afford to turn to self‐employment as a health strategy and those who felt squeezed out of the organizations due to poverty or discrimination. They more often dealt with precarious work in the context of precarious lives, negatively impacting their health. Third, we describe how negotiating an entrepreneurial identity with a caring identity required material sacrifices and thus contributed to self‐employed care workers' financial precariousness, particularly as women.
Conclusion
Our findings indicate that working in LTC is becoming increasingly precarious for all care workers, both for hired and self‐employed, with younger, lower‐paid and racialized women with unpaid caring responsibilities seemingly most at risk for precariousness.
Impact
Our findings urge policy makers and care organizations to develop gender and diversity‐sensitive policy responses to address these inequities.
Education is considered one of the most critical human capital investments. But does formal educational attainment "pay off" in terms of job satisfaction? To answer this question, in Study 1 we use a ...meta-analytic technique to examine the correlation between educational attainment and job satisfaction (k = 74, N = 134,924) and find an effect size close to zero. We then build on the job demands-resources (JD-R) model and research that distinguishes between working conditions and perceived stress to theorize that educational attainment involves notable trade-offs. In Study 2 we develop and test a multipath, two-stage mediation model using a nationally representative sample to explore this idea. We find that, while better-educated individuals enjoy greater job resources (income, job autonomy, and job variety), they also tend to incur greater job demands (work hours, task pressure, job intensity, and time urgency). On average, these demands are associated with increased job stress and decreased job satisfaction, largely offsetting the positive gains associated with greater resources. Given that the net relationship between education and job satisfaction emerges as weakly negative, we highlight that important trade-offs underlie the education-job satisfaction link. In supplemental analyses, we identify boundary conditions based on gender and self-employment status (such that being female exacerbates, and being self-employed attenuates, the negative association between education and job satisfaction). Finally, we discuss the practical implications for individuals and organizations, as well as alternative explanations for the education-job satisfaction link.
This paper launches a discussion for using privilege to understand migrant self-employment. Migrants are a heterogeneous and complex group, yet migrant self-employment studies have not yet considered ...how privilege provides opportunities or gains. Using mixed-methods this paper explores the role of privilege in migrant self-employment. Life course histories are combined with full-population register data to understand migrant self-employment and to provide a sense of privilege in process. Findings reveal theoretically and empirically how privilege shapes self-employment for women migrants in Sweden with certain groups benefitting more from privilege.
Health insurance can have important effects on self-employment and self-employment transitions. However, there is a literature gap on the relationship between health insurance and self-employment in ...low- and middle-income countries, especially in the context of the rapid expansion of health insurance in these countries. This article examines this relationship in Vietnam with a focus on a comparison between the voluntary scheme for the informal sector (mostly self-employed workers) and compulsory insurance for the formal sector (mostly wage workers). We employ a Probit model with selection on a panel from the Vietnamese Household Living Standards Surveys 2010-2014 to investigate the association between health insurance and self-employment entry and exit. We show that those with compulsory health insurance in Vietnam, the formal workers, are 10 percentage points less likely to enter self-employment than those having voluntary insurance. Regarding self-employment exit, people with compulsory insurance are more likely to exit self-employment compared with those covered by voluntary insurance. However, the effect size is relatively small.
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