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...

Longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP) are used to examine developments in self-employment in Germany between 1984 and 1998.Following a discussion of the key characteristics of self-employment in Germany, the GSOEP data are used to determine who becomes...

The reemergence of self-employment in mostWestern European countries since the 1980s is seen as a reaction to changes inthe organization of work in Europe, and not necessarily an effect of economicmodernization. The development and features of self-employment are traced ineight Western European...