We analyse the characteristics of workers who provide work on the basis of a civil or commercial contract, but who are dependent on or integrated into the firm for which they work. We argue that these dependent self-employed lose their rights under labour law, receive less favourable benefits...

The rapid growth of informal employment in China in recent decades has attracted attention, but to understand its implications, the concept of informality must be deconstructed. We reclassify employment status into three categories: salaried workers who have long-term contracts; the self-employed;...

The share of non-standard jobs in total employment has increased in Germany over recent decades. Research tends to attribute this in particular to labour market re-forms and socio-economic change. However, it becomes clear upon closer inspection that macro trends alone cannot provide...

It is widely assumed that contingent forms of employment, such as fixed-term contracts, labour-hire and casual employment, are associated with low quality jobs. This hypothesis is tested using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, a nationally...

A range of evidence suggests that non-standard jobs, including fixed-term and other temporary jobs such as casual jobs, pay lower wages than more standard, permanent jobs, even after controlling for differences in worker and job characteristics. A recent literature suggests this is also the case...

This paper explores the relationship between non-standard types of employment and mental health. The analysis uses data on workers from the first seven waves of the British Household Panel Study, 1991-97. Four different types of non-standard employment (non-standard contracts, places, times, and...

Utilising a large representative data set for Germany, this study contrasts absenteeism of self-employed individuals and paid employees. We find that absence from work is clearly less prevalent among the self-employed than among paid employees. Only to a small extent, this difference can be...

This paper examines effects of state Medicaid Expansion via the Affordable Care Act on the self-employed. We first examine impacts on the probability of self-employment and find no significant effect. We then examine the probability of having health insurance and the type of coverage for...