Introduction: self-employed professionals in a comparative perspective

The aim of this volume is to explain the variance in legal status, working conditions, social protection and collective representation of self-employed professionals1 across Europe. The Introduction contextualizes self-employment in a comparative perspective, explaining the economic and technological reasons that support in particular the growth of self-employed professionals, who offer highly qualified and specialized skills that perfectly respond to the needs of contemporary capitalism. The proliferation of these occupations, functional to the services economy, which deviate from the traditional employment relationship, pose challenges to the systems of institutional regulation of labour, welfare and collective representation. The chapter deals with the individual dimensions of autonomy at work (work legal status, work content and working conditions) and addresses the issue of how employment autonomy is governed in different European national contexts. It emphasizes the importance of understanding in which institutional settings professionals develop their activity and may find policy responses to emerging needs for social protection and collective representation. The last part of the Introduction describes the structure of the book, giving a summary of the content of each chapter. Virtually all capitalist economies deal with the challenges of transition to an on-demand service economy, supported by unprecedented technological developments and the digital revolution that has modified traditional professions and generated new ones, fostering the growth of a body of highly qualified professionals. Since the 1990s, they have played a key role in satisfying the growing demand for flexible, skill-based and