Working from home and the gender gap in earnings for self-employed US Millennials

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to explore gender differences in terms of self-employment for US Millennials, relating them to working from home as well as other factors. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use a population-based survey, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, which allows to compare home-based vs non-home-based self-employed women and men on a wide variety of characteristics. Descriptive analyses reveal the unconditional relationships between the covariates of interest, and the authors use ordinary least squares regression to reveal the conditional correlations between working from home and earnings for both women and men. Findings – The authors find that working from home is highly negatively correlated with earnings for women, but not for men, and that working from home may trump the other characteristics typically associated with lower earnings. Research limitations/implications – The regression subsample is relatively small (n = 245), leading to omitted variable bias in the regression. The “working-from-home” variable is potentially endogenous. The small sample size does not allow the authors to use detailed information on the self-employment industry. Future research should focus on finding larger samples and a way to instrument for working from home. Social implications – Work/life trends and communications technology have made working from home more prevalent (Mateyka et al., 2012). It is important for researchers and policymakers to understand the gendered implications of basing a business at home. Originality/value – The study is the first to use population-based data to focus specifically on gender gaps in earnings of self-employed Millennials in relation to working from home.