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Does solo self-employment serve as a ‘stepping stone’ to employership?

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  • Cowling, Michael Leith
  • Wooden, Mark

Abstract

This paper examines the extent to which solo self-employment serves as a vehicle for job creation. Using panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, a dynamic multinomial logit model of transitions between labour market states is estimated. The empirical strategy closely follows that used in a previous study employing household data from Germany by Lechmann and Wunder (2017). Estimates of true cross-state dependence between solo self-employment and employership are obtained that are relatively small. Further, the results imply that the probability of a male worker being an employer just two years after transitioning out of solo self-employment is only about 4% (and among women, it is just 2%). The extent of both true cross-state dependence and true state dependence in employership is, however, much greater among individuals who have demonstrated a preference for self-employment in the past. This implies that pro-entrepreneurial policies that target more ‘entrepreneurial’ individuals will have more pronounced and long-term effects in stimulating job creation.

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  • Cowling, Michael Leith & Wooden, Mark, 2021. "Does solo self-employment serve as a ‘stepping stone’ to employership?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:68:y:2021:i:c:s0927537120301469
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2020.101942
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dynamic multinomial logit; HILDA Survey; solo self-employment; state dependence; stepping-stones;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship

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