Recent research on self-employment has emphasised the specific dynamic of the rise of female entrepreneurship. But self-employment is still predominated by men. Only about 25-30% of the self-employed are women and the female self-employment rate is often only half as high as the male self-employment rate. This ratio is rather similar and persisting in most European countries although self-employment is discussed as an attractive option of female labour since it is characterised by a high degree of autonomy and flexibility. In order to assess the flexibility which self-employment might offer, the paper regards the determinants and conditions for self-employment emphasising the differences between part-time and full-time work. The empirical analysis is based on the Labour Force Surveys from five European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the UK) and the Current Population Survey from the US. The comparison investigates how the institutional framework, which is set by welfare state provisions to combine family and work, influences the assumed link between need for flexibility and self-employment. The results show that in fact self-employment seems to offer more flexibility to combine family and work, but also, that there is variation between countries with different institutional settings
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)