Self-employment in the Czech Republic and CEE countries: persons and households

This article presents evidence on the development and patterns of self-employment in four Central-Eastern European (CEE) countries, with a special focus on the Czech Republic and in comparison with Austria and Germany. After a brief historical overview, it provides new comparative evidence on persons and households engaged in self-employment. First, the author points out the specific features of the development of these categories in communist and market regimes. Next, he shows in more detail the changes in the number and position of self-employed in the Czech Republic after 1990. Third, he draws on the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) to compare self-employed persons in CEE countries, Austria and Germany. Fourth, the same data source is used to describe couples and households of self-employed people and their incomes in comparison with employee households. While the shares of self-employed in the countries compared are becoming increasingly similar, there are still significant differences in the living conditions of the self-employed between and within them. Relative to employees, a certain polarisation in the situation of self-employed households is apparent.