Abstract
This paper examines the pattern of self-employment in Australia and the United States. We particularly focus on the movement of young people in and out of self-employment using comparable longitudinal data from the two countries. We find that the forces that influence whether a person becomes self-employed are broadly similar: in both countries skilled manual workers, males and older workers were particularly likely to move to self-employment. We also find that previous firm size, previous union status and previous earnings are important determinants of transitions to self-employment. The main difference we observe is that additional years of schooling had a positive impact on the probability of being self-employed in the US but were not a significant influence in Australia. However, the factors influencing the probability of leaving self-employment are different across the two countries.
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Blanchflower, D.G., Meyer, B.D. A longitudinal analysis of the young self-employed in Australia and the United States. Small Bus Econ 6, 1–19 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01066108
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01066108