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Self-Employment around Retirement Age

Author

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  • Stefan Hochguertel

    (VU University Amsterdam, and Netspar)

Abstract

This paper uses panel data from the pan-European SHARE survey to study labor market behavior of older male self-employed vis-a-vis wage employed workers. We find the self-employed to work longer hours, to be more flexible in their hours allocation, and to retire later in all countries. We relate these differences in observed behavior to individual characteristics, economic resources, and to documented cross-national variation in labor market and social security institutions. Differential incentives matter for the retirement behavior of the self-employed. We also provide evidence of the self-employed not wanting to retire as early as possible, and contrast these expectation data with realized retirement transitions. The overall picture that emerges is that older self-employed have a very strong labor market attachment and they use their degrees of freedom to work more and retire later accordingly.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan Hochguertel, 2010. "Self-Employment around Retirement Age," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 10-067/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20100067
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    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/10067.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Amparo Nagore Garcia & Mariacristina Rossi & Arthur van Soest, 2018. "Labour Market Decisions of the Self-Employed in the Netherlands at the Statutory Retirement Age," Working papers 057, Department of Economics, Social Studies, Applied Mathematics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino.
    3. Ana Ostrovidov Jaksic & Ivan Jaksic, 2019. "How to prolong labour market participation in the Republic of Croatia?," Public Sector Economics, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 43(1), pages 79-108.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    self-employment; labor supply; retirement; pensions; Europe; institutions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship

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