All the Same? – Job Quality and Heterogeneity Among the Self-employed

The last decade has seen increasing heterogeneity in self-employed work. While the ‘traditional’ variaton associated with entrepreneurialism and autonomy still exists, a precarious segment of workers who choose self-employment out of economic necessity has gained relevance. This article aims to capture the diversity of self-employment in Europe. A multi-dimensional concept of jobquality is derived from the literature on dependent employment, adapted to the particularities of self-employed work. Applying Latent Class Analysis to data from the European Working Conditions Survey 2015, a categorisation based on 12 job quality indicators is obtained which identifies four classes. Regulars and Entrepreneurs are the well-paid and -protected classes with high skill levels and development opportunities, while the reverse is true for Part-timers and Strugglers. Yet both Entrepreneurs and Strugglers work irregular schedules and under high pressure. We further show how the distribution of workers across classes differs across six country groups and provide evidence on the socio-economic and labour market characteristics of workers in each class. Theoretically, this article provides insights into potential extensions to labour market segmentation theory in order to better capture the realities of self-employed workers.