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Female Self-Employment: Prevalence and Performance Effects of Having a High-Income Spouse

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  • Bjuggren, Carl Magnus

    (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN))

  • Henrekson, Magnus

    (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN))

Abstract

Little is known about self-employment as a career choice for women who marry a high-income spouse. We show that Swedish women who are married to a high-income spouse are, on average, highly educated and more likely to pursue self-employment than those married to a spouse in the middle of the income distribution. Using rich Swedish register data, we compare the likelihood of self-employment before and after marriage for women who marry a spouse in the top 1, 0.5 and 0.1 percent to those who marry a spouse in the middle of the income distribution. The likelihood of entering self-employment increases by 128–176 percent for women who marry a spouse in the top of the income distribution, and the shift into self-employment is associated with a lower income. The effect of marrying a high-income spouse is larger for women than for men.

Suggested Citation

  • Bjuggren, Carl Magnus & Henrekson, Magnus, 2018. "Female Self-Employment: Prevalence and Performance Effects of Having a High-Income Spouse," Working Paper Series 1200, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 19 Nov 2020.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1200
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Career choice; Entrepreneurship; Marriage; Self-employment; Women;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship

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