IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/sbusec/v63y2024i3d10.1007_s11187-023-00845-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transgender self-employment outcomes: evidence from the USA

Author

Listed:
  • Klavs Ciprikis

    (Sir John Rogerson’s Quay)

  • Damien Cassells

    (Technological University Dublin)

  • Jenny Berrill

    (Trinity College Dublin)

Abstract

Transgender persons are subject to strong stigma in society and the labour market. Transgender persons may therefore view self-employment as an opportunity to escape labour market inequalities. However, the rate of transgender self-employment, when compared to equivalent cisgender persons, has not been explored in previous research. Therefore, this article uses a large nationally representative dataset from the USA to examine differences in self-employment and incomes between transgender and cisgender persons. The main research technique uses Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder style decomposition to explain differences in mean self-employment rates and incomes between cisgender men and other gender groups. The findings show that transgender persons are less likely than cisgender men, but more likely than cisgender women, to be self-employed. Transgender people are also likely to earn less than cisgender persons, but in terms of income from self-employment only, transgender people are no better or worse than self-employed cisgender men. There is some evidence that self-employed transgender men are more likely to be in the highest income category than self-employed cisgender men. Some of the self-employment and income gaps could not be explained by sociodemographic characteristics and, therefore, may be due to differences in unobserved characteristics or potential discrimination. The findings in this article provide important and previously unavailable evidence on differences in self-employment outcomes between transgender and cisgender persons. Plain English Summary Transgender persons may choose self-employment to avoid potential discrimination in the labour market. The results from this analysis find that transgender persons are less likely than cisgender men, but more likely than cisgender women, to be self-employed. In terms of income, transgender people are also more likely to earn less than cisgender persons, while self-employed transgender persons are no better or worse off than self-employed cisgender men. Further analysis of self-employment and income gaps indicates that some of the difference in self-employment and income outcomes may be due to sociodemographic characteristics, but equally it may be due to potential discrimination experienced by transgender persons. These results provide context for further research in transgender experiences in self-employment and for appropriate public policy considerations to reduce economic inequality and societal stigma towards one of the potentially most marginalised groups in the USA.

Suggested Citation

  • Klavs Ciprikis & Damien Cassells & Jenny Berrill, 2024. "Transgender self-employment outcomes: evidence from the USA," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 871-896, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:63:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1007_s11187-023-00845-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s11187-023-00845-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11187-023-00845-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11187-023-00845-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oluwasheyi Oladipo & Katarzyna Platt & Hyoung Suk Shim, 2023. "Female entrepreneurs managing from home," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 447-464, August.
    2. Zhengyu Cai & Heather M. Stephens & John V. Winters, 2019. "Motherhood, migration, and self-employment of college graduates," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 611-629, October.
    3. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2017. "The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(3), pages 789-865, September.
    4. Dominik Buttler & Eva Sierminska, 2020. "Career or Flexible Work Arrangements? Gender Differences in Self-employment in a Young Market Economy," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 70-95, March.
    5. Granberg, Mark & Andersson, Per A. & Ahmed, Ali, 2020. "Hiring Discrimination Against Transgender People: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    6. Shannon, Matthew, 2022. "The labour market outcomes of transgender individuals," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    7. Nikolova, Milena, 2019. "Switching to self-employment can be good for your health," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 664-691.
    8. Ben Jann, 2008. "The Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition for linear regression models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 8(4), pages 453-479, December.
    9. Malcolm Brynin & Mohammed Shamsul Karim & Wouter Zwysen, 2019. "The Value of Self-Employment to Ethnic Minorities," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 33(5), pages 846-864, October.
    10. Karen Leppel, 2016. "The incidence of self-employment by sexual orientation," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 347-363, March.
    11. Beauregard, T. Alexandra & Arevshatian, L. & Booth, Jonathan E. & Whittle, S., 2016. "Listen carefully: transgender voices in the workplace," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 67793, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Carpenter, Christopher S. & Lee, Maxine J. & Nettuno, Laura, 2022. "Economic Outcomes for Transgender People and Other Gender Minorities in the United States: First Estimates from a Nationally Representative Sample," IZA Discussion Papers 15116, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Christopher S. Carpenter & Maxine J. Lee & Laura Nettuno, 2022. "Economic outcomes for transgender people and other gender minorities in the United States: First estimates from a nationally representative sample," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(2), pages 280-304, October.
    14. Frank M. Fossen, 2021. "Self-employment over the business cycle in the USA: a decomposition," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1837-1855, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Luca Fumarco & Benjamin Harrell & Patrick Button & David Schwegman & E Dils, 2020. "Gender Identity, Race, and Ethnicity-based Discrimination in Access to Mental Health Care: Evidence from an Audit Correspondence Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 28164, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Taryn Eames, 2024. "Taryn versus Taryn (she/her) versus Taryn (they/them): A Field Experiment on Pronoun Disclosure and Hiring Discrimination," Working Papers tecipa-766, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    3. Abbate, Nicolás & Berniell, Inés & Coleff, Joaquín & Laguinge, Luis & Machelett, Margarita & Marchionni, Mariana & Pedrazzi, Julián & Pinto, María Florencia, 2024. "Discrimination against gay and transgender people in Latin America: A correspondence study in the rental housing market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    4. Tomlin, Bryan, 2024. "Pronoun usage and gender identity's effects on market outcomes: Evidence from a preregistered field experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).
    5. Nettuno, Laura, 2024. "Gender identity, labor market outcomes, and socioeconomic status: Evidence from Chile," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    6. Oscar Molina Tejerina & Luis Castro Peñarrieta, 2020. "Unexplained Wage Gaps in the Tradable and Nontradable Sectors: Cross-Sectional Evidence by Gender in Bolivia," Investigación & Desarrollo, Universidad Privada Boliviana, vol. 20(1), pages 5-23.
    7. Daniela Piazzalunga & Maria Laura Di Tommaso, 2019. "The increase of the gender wage gap in Italy during the 2008-2012 economic crisis," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(2), pages 171-193, June.
    8. Billur Aksoy & Christopher S. Carpenter & Dario Sansone, 2022. "Understanding Labor Market Discrimination Against Transgender People: Evidence from a Double List Experiment and a Survey," NBER Working Papers 30483, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Gawai, Vikas PD & Foltz, Jeremy D., 2023. "Discrimination in Science: Salaries of Foreign and US Born Land-Grant University Scientists," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322134, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    10. Hildegunn E. Stokke, 2021. "The gender wage gap and the early‐career effect: the role of actual experience and education level," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 35(2), pages 135-162, June.
    11. Rahman, Mustafizur & Al-Hasan, Md., 2018. "Male-Female wage gap and informal employment in Bangladesh: A quantile regression approach," MPRA Paper 90131, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Waitkus, Nora & Minkus, Lara, 2021. "Investigating the gender wealth gap across occupational classes," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108206, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Ariane Aumaitre, 2022. "Three Tales of Gender Equality in a Post-Industrial World," LIS Working papers 849, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    14. Karen Mumford & Cristina Sechel, 2017. "Pay, Rank and Job Satisfaction amongst Academic Economists in the UK," Discussion Papers 17/17, Department of Economics, University of York.
    15. Karen Mumford & Cristina Sechel, 2020. "Pay and Job Rank among Academic Economists in the UK: Is Gender Relevant?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 82-113, March.
    16. Michael E. Martell & Leanne Roncolato, 2023. "Economic Vulnerability of Sexual Minorities: Evidence from the US Household Pulse Survey," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(2), pages 1-74, April.
    17. Paul David Boll & Lukas Mergele & Larissa Zierow, 2022. "The gender pay gap in university student employment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(4), pages 2253-2313, October.
    18. Rick Glaubitz & Astrid Harnack-Eber & Miriam Wetter, 2022. "The Gender Gap in Lifetime Earnings: The Role of Parenthood," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2001, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    19. Enzo Brox & Riccardo Di Francesco, 2024. "The Cost of Coming Out," Papers 2403.03649, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    20. Fossen, Frank M. & McLemore, Trevor & Sorgner, Alina, 2024. "Artificial Intelligence and Entrepreneurship," IZA Discussion Papers 17055, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender; Income inequality; Labour market discrimination; Self-employment; Transgender persons;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:63:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1007_s11187-023-00845-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.