To what extent are the self-employed satisfied? A focus on involuntariness and forms of dependency in Europe

Abstract

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.