This paper reviews trends in self-employment up to the 1980s and beyond, and looks at the composition and characteristics of the self-employed workforce. It examines the causes of the current rise in self-employment - in particular employers' strategy of transferring jobs and functions from...

Current debates about changing patterns of work tend to be structured around Atkinson's model of the flexible firm, which is similar to Loveridge's model of firm-specific labour markets. Two spring 1987 national surveys, of workers and of employers, are analysed to show that the balance between...