A longitudinal analysis of the young self-employed in Australia and the United States

Citation

Blanchflower D & Meyer BD (1994) A longitudinal analysis of the young self-employed in Australia and the United States. Small Business Economics, 6 (1), pp. 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01066108

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.

Journal
Small Business Economics: Volume 6, Issue 1