IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cep/cepcvd/cepcovid-19-030.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The self-employment trap?

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Blackburn
  • Stephen Machin
  • Maria Ventura

Abstract

The seventh LSE-CEP survey of the self-employed was undertaken in June 2023. The results revealed that the self-employed are still in the doldrums and their incomes and activity have not resumed to pre-pandemic levels. The cost of living crisis has been exacerbated by the increase in interest rates, which has hit homeowner self-employed particularly hard. While many among them express willingness to move towards positions in salaried employment, they are often prevented to do so by the scarcity of suitable jobs or the lack of adequate skills or training. The hardships they are facing is also affecting their health, with one in three self-employed displaying "Moderate" to "Severe" mental health issues. Nevertheless, their discontent is likely to be reflected in the next general election outcomes, as many self-employed are turning from voting Conservative to Labour.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Blackburn & Stephen Machin & Maria Ventura, 2023. "The self-employment trap?," CEP Covid-19 Analyses cepcovid-19-030, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:cep:cepcvd:cepcovid-19-030
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cepcovid-19-030.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ross Levine & Yona Rubinstein, 2018. "Selection into Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment," NBER Working Papers 25350, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Andrew Burke & Marc Cowling, 2020. "On the critical role of freelancers in agile economies," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 393-398, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sergio Ocampo & Juan Herreño, 2023. "The Macroeconomic Consequences of Subsistence Self-Employment," University of Western Ontario, Departmental Research Report Series 20231, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics.
    2. Kunwon Ahn & John V. Winters, 2023. "Does education enhance entrepreneurship?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 717-743, August.
    3. Kristina McElheran & J. Frank Li & Erik Brynjolfsson & Zachary Kroff & Emin Dinlersoz & Lucia Foster & Nikolas Zolas, 2024. "AI adoption in America: Who, what, and where," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 375-415, March.
    4. Barrios, John M. & Hochberg, Yael V. & Yi, Hanyi, 2022. "Launching with a parachute: The gig economy and new business formation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 22-43.
    5. Macnamara, Patrick & Pidkuyko, Myroslav & Rossi, Raffaele, 2024. "Marginal tax rates and income in the long run: Evidence from a structural estimation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    6. Abraham, Katharine G. & Hershbein, Brad & Houseman, Susan N., 2021. "Contract work at older ages," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 426-447, July.
    7. Guo, Xue & Cheng, Aaron & Pavlou, Paul A., 2024. "Skill-biased technical change, again? Online gig platforms and local employment," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 124538, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Jensen, Thais Laerkholm & Leth-Petersen, Søren & Nanda, Ramana, 2022. "Financing constraints, home equity and selection into entrepreneurship," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 318-337.
    9. Fairlie, Robert W., 2020. "The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Business Owners: Evidence of Early-Stage Losses from the April 2020 Current Population Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 13311, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Unel, Bulent & Upton, Gregory B., 2023. "Oil & gas induced economic fluctuations and self-employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    11. Yu, Wei & Stephan, Ute & Bao, Jia, 2023. "Childhood adversities: Mixed blessings for entrepreneurial entry," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 38(2).
    12. Ma, Liya & Niu, Dongxiao & Sun, Weizeng, 2021. "Transportation infrastructure and entrepreneurship: Evidence from high-speed railway in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    13. Jarkko Harju & Toni Juuti & Tuomas Matikka, 2023. "Stairway to Heaven? Selection into Entrepreneurship, Income Mobility and Firm Performance," Working Papers 17, Finnish Centre of Excellence in Tax Systems Research.
    14. Qing Hu & Ross Levine & Chen Lin & Mingzhu Tai, 2019. "Mentally Spent: Credit Conditions and Mental Health," NBER Working Papers 25584, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Milena Nikolova & Boris Nikolaev & Christopher Boudreaux, 2023. "Being your own boss and bossing others: the moderating effect of managing others on work meaning and autonomy for the self-employed and employees," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 463-483, February.
    16. Hsuan-Hua Huang & Hsing-Wen Han & Kuang-Ta Lo & Tzu-Ting Yang, 2023. "Liquidity Constraints, Cash Windfalls, and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Administrative Data on Lottery Winners," Papers 2303.17029, arXiv.org.
    17. Herreño, Juan & Ocampo, Sergio, 2023. "The macroeconomic consequences of subsistence self-employment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 91-106.
    18. Fairlie, Robert, 2020. "The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Business Owners: The First Three Months after Social-Distancing Restrictions," MPRA Paper 113127, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Inés Berniell & Lucila Berniell & Dolores de la Mata & María Edo & Yarine Fawaz & Matilde P. Machado & Mariana Marchionni, 2020. "Motherhood and the Allocation of Talent," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0270, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    20. Fairlie, Robert W, 2020. "The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Business Owners: Continued Losses and the Partial Rebound in May 2020," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt21f993s2, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cep:cepcvd:cepcovid-19-030. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/covid-19-analyses/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.