It is unclear to what extent self‐employed choose to become self‐employed.
This study aimed to compare the health care expenditures—as a proxy for
health—of self‐employed individuals in the year before they started their
business, to that of employees. Differences by sex, age, and industry were
studied. In total, 5,741,457 individuals aged 25–65 years who were listed in the
tax data between 2010 and 2015 with data on their health insurance claims
were included. Self‐employed and employees were stratified according to sex,
age, household position, personal income, region, and industry for each of the
years covered. Weighted linear regression was used to compare health care
expenditures in the preceding (year x–1) between self‐employed and employees (in year x). Compare