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,...

This paper investigates the patterns of male non-agricultural self-employment and how they have changed over time in France, Germany and the UK. It is argued that the development of self-employment in the three countries is based on specific institutional frameworks resulting in different...