Self-employed or not Self-employed? Working Conditions of ‘Economically Dependent Workers’

In recent years, practices such as outsourcing and contracting-out have increasingly blurred the boundaries between dependent employment and self-employment. A new group of workers has emerged, which comprises workers who are formally ‘self-employed’, but present some characteristics of employees. These ‘economically dependent workers’ usually have a commercial contract (or ‘service contract’) rather than an employment contract; they are therefore registered as self-employed when in reality their working conditions have a lot in common with those of employees. This development makes it difficult to distinguish (within those who are registered as self-employed) between people who are really self-employed and running their own business, and people who for example depend on a single employer for their income and thus have no real autonomy in running their ‘business’. The purpose of this short exploratory paper is to investigate the position of these economically dependent workers and to find out whether overall their working conditions are more similar to those of the self-employed or to those of employees. This exercise builds on data from the 2010 wave of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS)

Changing tax for the self-employed

The government’s overhaul of the direct tax system, including the 1984 reforms to the Corporation Tax, the introduction of Independent Taxation and in 1993, the introduction of ‘pay and file’ for companies, has so far left the taxation of the self-employed relatively untouched. Despite many criticisms of the system, including more recently the Keith Committee report (1983) and the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons (1976), it is only now that the government has considered reforming the income tax system as it relates to the self-employed, with the publication of a consultative document, A Simpler System for Taxing the Self-Employed, (Inland Revenue, 1991a). At the heart of the proposals is reform of the ‘preceding year basis of assessment’ (PY basis), introduced by Winston Churchill in 1926, itself then billed as a ‘simplification’ of the system.

(Why) Do Self-Employed Parents Have More Children?

We provide a theory whereby non-benevolent, self-employed households increase their expected family size to raise the likelihood that an inside family member will be a good match at running the business. Hence, having larger family sizes raises the self-employed household’s expected return to their business. Using data from the General Social Survey, we find that respondents have approximately .2 to .4 more actual and expected number of children if they are self-employed as compared to if they are not self-employed. This empirical relationship is established across a broad array of sub-samples using a simple differences in means test. As well, the empirical relationship holds using a regression framework, including the use of instrumental variables estimation to allow for the possibility of endogeneity of the respondent’s self-employment status and whether the respondent’s spouse stays at home.self-employed, children, familiy business, matching

Self-employed immigrants: an analysis of recent data

This article identifies the factors that influence the self- employment decision for U.S. immigrants, including human capital, years in the U.S., geographic concentration, and labor market characteristics.Self-employed ; Immigrants

Who are the Self-employed? A New Approach

Whilst the individual supply-side characteristics of the self-employed are well documented, the literature has largely neglected (or mis-specified) demand-side aspects. Our econometric framework, based on the parameterised DOGEV model, allows us to separately, and simultaneously, model supply and demand-side influences. We show that whilst individual characteristics are important determinants of type of employment contract held, there are important contract-specific factors influencing the contract an individual is employed under. Our results suggest that workers may be "captive" to particular types of employment because of the sectors in which they work, the number of hours they prefer to work and their ethnicity.self-employment, captivity

Trade Liberalization and the Self-employed in Mexico

In this paper I examine the trend in income inequality and poverty among the self-employed workers in Mexico over the last two decades (1984?2002). This is the period over which Mexico opened its economy to the global market through trade and investment liberalization. For the first decade following the liberalization, inequality and poverty among the self-employed increased; as the economy stabilized and the country saw economic growth inequality started to go down, but poverty kept increasing. To understand the changes in inequality and poverty I decompose the inequality and poverty indices into within and between group components. Rising returns to skilled labour, regional differences in impact of liberalization and sectoral shifts in employment are important factors in explaining the trends in both inequality and poverty.income inequality, poverty, Shapley?Shorrocks decomposition, self-employed, Mexico

Self-Employed Contractors in Australia: Incidence and Characteristics

This paper presents an analysis of self-employed contracting in Australia. The analysis covers all self-employed contractors, including dependent and independent contractors. The paper finds that self- employed contractors have become more common in Australia over the past 20 years. In August 1998, 10 per cent of employed persons, or 844 000 individuals, worked as self-employed contractors.contractors - contracting - self-employed - labour force - forms of employment - dependent contractors - independent contractors