The distribution of wealth of older self-employed Britons

Little is known about the wealth of older self-employed people, despite growing interest in this labour market group. This paper utilises the British Retirement Survey to fill the gap by providing novel estimates of their lifetime wealth. The findings dispel the idea that the self-employed live in poverty; indeed, they seem to be a relatively wealthy group, holding a broad spread of assets and subject to moderate lifetime wealth inequality. These findings may help inform modelling of retirement behaviour of this group, as well as pension policy design.