Reexamining the Pushed-pulled Debate: The Antecedents and Consequences of Wage Workers’ Transitions into Self-employment

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Abstract

We draw from a national longitudinal study of Canadian workers to examine the push and pull factors that contribute to self-employment transitions. Previous studies that have addressed this issue have been hampered by an absence of longitudinal data necessary to disentangle the various explanations for why wage workers enter self-employment. Panel analyses of the Canadian Work, Stress and Health Study (CANWSH; N=2,113) reveal a number of baseline demographic and wage work conditions that predict future self-employment transitions. Women wage workers were considerably less likely than male wage workers to transition into self-employment, while low earnings were associated with an increased likelihood of a self-employment transition. We find mixed support for pull-side and push-side explanations of self-employment. Wage workers who transitioned into self-employment reported higher job pressures prior to the transition, which we interpret as evidence that self-employment may attract individuals seeking greater control and freedom over work pressures. In contrast, higher levels of work-family conflict at the baseline did not predict future transitions into self-employment, thus providing no evidence that wage workers became self-employed to attain improved work-family balance. On the push-side, perceived job insecurity at the baseline was associated with an increased likelihood of future self-employment—indicating that wage workers may be pushed into self-employment by the fear of an imminent job loss. Economic hardship and regional unemployment did not predict self-employment transitions, however. Additional fixed-effects regression analyses revealed that self-employment status predicted lower job pressures among women and lower work-family conflict for both men and women.

Authors

• Paul Glavin, McMaster University

• Tomislav Filipovic, McMaster University