Dependent self-employment across Europe: involuntariness, country's wealth and labor market institutions

Abstract

This paper investigates the degree of involuntariness in the entrepreneurial activity ofthe dependent solo self-employed, as well as the effect of the country's wealth and labormarket institutions. Using the unique information available in the 2017 European LaborForce Survey (EU-LFS) for 25 countries, we can properly identify the dependent soloself-employed and analyze to what extent they behave in accordance with anoccupational choice model when making their self-employment decision. For that, weaccount for the reasons why they enter into self-employment (voluntarily orinvoluntarily either out of necessity or requested by the former employer). The resultsindicate that involuntary self-employment, mostly due to being required by previousemployer, significantly increases the probability of being dependent solo versus nondependent self-employed. The wealthiest countries have a lower incidence of this groupof workers, mainly if they are involuntary self-employed. Moreover, labor marketinstitutions that decrease the flexibility of paid employment tend to increase theincidence of dependent solo self-employment. These results point to this group ofworkers being particularly vulnerable with the degree of vulnerability significantlyincreasing for those self-employed with a lesser degree of occupational choice.