Abstract
This study provides some novel evidence on the relationship between solo self-employment and paid employment opportunities across 28 European countries and 8 occupations for the period 2012-19. Adding the occupational dimension allows us to investigate this relationship at a more disaggregated level than previous cross-country studies. The adoption of a cross-country cross-occupation analytical framework makes it possible to consider that both the solo self-employment rate and the availability of jobs in the wage and salary sector vary across occupations, as well as across countries within occupations. Findings suggest that the share of solo self-employed in total employment, as well as its prevalence among new job starters, in each occupation-country pair is higher (lower) when there are poor (better) paid employment prospects within the same pair. This finding holds across different subsets of occupations, including those which typically require higher education attainment. This could reflect that highly educated individuals who do not find adequate jobs inthe wage and salary sector have a higher opportunity cost of switching to other occupations where paid employment opportunities are more abundant, and hence they may opt to work as solo self-employed within their preferred occupation. Finally, we do not find any correlation between the extent of paid employment opportunities and the prevalence of self-employed with employees, which is consistent with the idea that employers and solo self-employed are possibly two distinct groups with different motivations for entering in such activity.