This paper uses panel data from the pan-European SHARE survey to study labor market behavior of older male self-employed vis-a-vis wage employed workers. We find the self-employed to work longer hours, to be more flexible in their hours allocation, and to retire later in all countries. We relate...

When compared to wage earners, the take up rate of qualified retirement plans by the self-employed seems to be much lower. This paper explores the various factors that influence the observed participation and contributions to such plans. The findings show that participation declines with...

Policymaker and media attention has recently focused on the rise of the so-called “gig” or freelance employment sector, where workers lack formal long-term relationships with one specific firm. This topic has captured public interest partly because of concern that those engaged in...

The authors examine how public and private pension and health insurance systems affect retirement transitions. In many countries, public and private pension eligibility, as well as access to health insurance varies between self-employed and wage and salary workers, and these differences are...

Self-employed tradespeople, like many business owners, face income uncertainty risk. In Australia, self-employed people are excluded from compulsory superannuation. We quantify financial decisions self-employed tradespeople make in retirement preparation, relative to employed tradespeople. We...

The aim of this paper is to examine differences in life expectancy (LE) between self-employed (SE) and paid employee (PE) workers when they become retirement pensioners, looking at levels of pension income using administrative data from Spanish social security records. We draw on the Continuous...