Self-employment still forms an important element in the social structure of modern societies. However, the group of the self-employed has experienced an enormous economic and social change. After a long term decline until the beginning of the 1970s in almost all industrialised countries,...

The class scheme of Erikson, Goldthorpe and Portocarero (see Erikson/Goldthorpe 1992) plays an important role in sociological research on inequality and mobility. The empirical application is based on labour statistics which are regularly collected in representative surveys in most societies....