Adopting an abductive approach, in this paper we use two studies to examine the relationships between financial worries and well-being amongst the self-employed during the time of the COVID-19 ...pandemic. In Study 1 of 4806 participants from the Understanding Society’s COVID-19 survey of the UK population, we find that financial worries were associated with higher mental distress for self-employed when facing reduced work hours. In Study 2, in a sample of 1794 participants from the six-country COVID study, we find that higher than expected fall in income mediates the association between self-employment and happiness. The findings have implications for research regarding financial worries, distress, and well-being of the self-employed.
•Financial worries related to the COVID-19 pandemic are positively related to mental distress.•Reduced work had a greater association with mental distress for self-employed than for employed individuals.•Self-employed individuals are more likely to expect a fall in their own income related to the COVID-19 pandemic.•Higher than expected fall in income mediates self-employment and lower happiness.
Fritsch M. and Wyrwich M. The long persistence of regional levels of entrepreneurship: Germany, 1925-2005, Regional Studies. This paper investigates the persistent levels of self-employment and new ...business formation in different time periods and under different framework conditions. The analysis shows that regional differences regarding the level of self-employment and new business formation tend to be persistent for periods as long as eighty years, despite abrupt and drastic changes in the political-economic environment. This pronounced persistence demonstrates the existence of regional entrepreneurship culture that tends to have long-lasting effects.
•This paper exploits oil and gas activity generated by recent technological advancements to understand the effect of localized boom and busts on self-employment.•We find a positive contemporaneous ...impact on self-employment, mainly driven by selfemployment in non-mining industries.•Self-employment is pro-cyclical, i.e. it increases during oil and gas booms and contracts during the bust.•Self-employment explains an economically meaningful share of the employment adjustment.
This paper exploits oil and gas activity generated by recent technological advancements to understand the effect of localized boom and busts on self-employment. We find a positive contemporaneous impact on self-employment, mainly driven by self-employment in non-mining industries. We also find that self-employment is pro-cyclical, meaning that self-employment increases during oil and gas booms and contracts during the bust. Finally, results suggest that self-employment explains an economically meaningful share of the employment adjustment; specifically we estimate that about 11% of the employment adjustment can be explained by self-employed workers, a group which makes up about 9% of total employment.
Despite the consensus that entrepreneurship runs in the family, we lack evidence regarding the total importance of family and community background, as well as the relative importance of different ...background influences that affect entrepreneurship. We draw on human capital formation theories to argue that families and communities provide a salient context for the development of individual entrepreneurial skills and preferences, beyond the existing focus on parental entrepreneurship. We posit that early influences are more important than later influences and propose a hierarchy of family influences, whereby genes have the largest explanatory power, followed by parental entrepreneurship, neighborhoods, and parental resources, and finally by parental immigration, family structure, and sibling peers. Finally, we argue that the higher human and financial capital intensity of incorporated relative to unincorporated entrepreneurship predictably alters the hierarchy of family influences, as does gender. Sibling correlations estimated on Swedish register data confirm our hypotheses.
•We theorize a hierarchy of family and community influences in entrepreneurship.•Early influences matter more than later influences for human capital formation.•Family and community background explains up to 45% of variation in entrepreneurship.•Shared genes matter most, then parental entrepreneurship, resources, and neighborhoods.•Incorporation draws more strongly on parental resources and type-specific role models.
We investigate how self-employment in East Germany was impacted by 40 years of Soviet-style communism and the subsequent shock transition to a market economic system. To this end, we compare ...self-employment in East and West Germany after reunification with self-employment before the separation of Germany after World War II. Our results show that the strict anti-entrepreneurial policies prevalent during the Soviet regime do not have a long-run negative effect on self-employment in East Germany. Quite to the contrary, self-employment in East Germany today is higher than before German separation. This finding cannot be explained by necessity self-employment. Our analysis suggests that current differences in self-employment between East and West Germany are pre-dominantly a result of the sudden shock transformation that occurred with reunification, rather than the outcome of four decades of anti-entrepreneurial policies and ideology.
While the spread of digital technologies and the growth of associated atypical forms of work are attracting increasing attention, little is known about the impact of these new forms of work on ...psychological well‐being. This paper examines the effect of Uber diffusion on the mental health of drivers, taking advantage of the rollout of Uber across UK regions. We match individual‐level information on health and sociodemographic characteristics from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (Understanding Society) between 2009 and 2019 with data on the diffusion of Uber across the country. We first show that Uber diffusion is positively associated with mental health, as measured by the General Health Questionnaire, in the population group of self‐employed drivers. We argue that this positive correlation captures a selection effect (of comparatively healthier individuals into the category of self‐employed drivers after Uber entry) and the omission of unobserved factors, rather than a causal effect. Indeed, we do not observe any improvement in mental health for workers who were already self‐employed drivers before Uber entry. In parallel with this, among individuals who remained salaried drivers over time, our results suggest there may be a decline in mental health after Uber's introduction, probably because they feel the competition from Uber drivers.
„Uberizarea” muncii descrie o piață digitală de muncă, în care platformele intervin ca simpli intermediari, serviciile oferite fiind prestate de utilizatori care desfășoară o activitatea ...independentă. Cu toate că raționamentul este valabil în cazul anumitor platforme, cel puțin în cazul aplicațiilor mobile bazate pe locație, el poate fi pus sub semnul îndoielii. În analiza noastră vom încerca să arătăm că pornind de la condițiile serviciului prestat, acestea fiind stabilite în mod unilateral de platformă, nu se poate nega existența unui control semnificativ exercitat asupra „platform workers”, oferind câteva repere jurisprudențiale relevante în acest sens. În consecință, așa cum vom arăta prin concluzii, situația este una difuză întrucât acești lucrători prestează o activitate pe care nu o pot organiza singuri, deși o desfășoară, teoretic, din postura de independenți.
It is well documented that the self-employed experience higher levels of happiness than waged employees even when their incomes are lower. Given the UK government’s asymmetric treatment of waged ...workers and the self-employed, we use a unique Covid-19 period data set which covers the months leading up to the March lockdown and the months just after to assess three aspects of the Covid-19 crisis on the self-employed: hours of work reductions, the associated income reductions and the effects of both on subjective well-being. Our findings show the large and disproportionate reductions in hours and income for the self-employed directly contributed to a deterioration in their levels of subjective well-being compared to waged workers. It appears that their resilience was broken when faced with the reality of dealing with rare events, particularly when the UK welfare support response was asymmetric and favouring waged employees.
Turning unemployment into self-employment has become an increasingly important part of active labor market policies (ALMP) in many OECD countries. Germany is a good example where the spending on ...start-up subsidies for the unemployed accounted for nearly 17% of the total spending on ALMP in 2004. In contrast to other programs—like vocational training, job creation schemes, or wage subsidies—the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of such schemes is still scarce; especially regarding long-term effects and effect heterogeneity. This paper aims to close this gap. We use administrative and survey data from a large sample of participants in two distinct start-up programs and a control group of unemployed individuals. We find that over 80% of participants are integrated in the labor market and have relatively high labor income five years after start-up. Additionally, participants are much more satisfied with their current occupational situation compared to previous jobs. Based on propensity score matching methods we estimate the long-term effects of the programs against non-participation and take great care in assessing the sensitivity of our results with respect to deviations from the identifying assumption. Our results turn out to be robust and show that both programs are effective with respect to income and employment outcomes in the long-run, i.e., five years after start-up. Moreover, we consider effect heterogeneity with respect to several dimensions and show that start-up subsidies for the unemployed tend to be most effective for disadvantaged groups in the labor market.
► The empirical evidence on the effects of start-up subsidies for the unemployed is scare. ► We close this gap by evaluating the long-term effects of two large programs in Germany. ► Both programs are effective and help formerly unemployed to integrate in the first labour market and achieve higher earnings. ► They are most effective for disadvantaged groups in the labor market. ► Our results are very robust to deviations from the identifying assumptions.
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