In and Out of Self-Employment, Are You Really an Entrepreneur: The Rise of a New Division?

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines self-employed individuals in the UK Labour market. We use an amalgamated dataset, the British Household Panel Survey, from the years 1991 to 2008, and its successor the United Kingdom Longitudinal Study, from years 2010 to 2014, following 11,657 respondents in the UK for 23 years. We explore the characteristics of different self-employed groups and create a new division that differentiates those who sustain in self-employment from those who move between self-employment and employee jobs. The sample size consists of 1146 sustained self-employed, 1149 dabbled self-employed and 9362 paid workers. We found that dabblers exhibit unique set of attributes that place them in a distinct position compared to sustained self-employed and/or employees. Dabblers seem to be ‘pulled’ rather than ‘pushed’ into self-employment, reflecting a labour market ‘power’ instead of deficiency. Thus, bringing key insight into a group who have not been separately identified in the labour market to date, the self-employed dabblers.