Abstract
In this study, we examine whether job control, job demands and job outcomes of ‘dependent self-employed workers’, i.e. the workers in this particular grey zone between employment and self-employment, are more similar to those of the self-employed or paid employed. To this end, we use microdata drawn from the 2010 wave of the European Working Conditions Survey for 34 European countries. First, we develop and validate a psychometrically sound multidimensional scale for these 3 key constructs by conducting both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Then, multilevel (hierarchical) linear regressions are used to test the validity of our hypotheses. Our results suggest that these hybrid work relationships are endowed with the least favourable attributes of both groups: lower job control than self-employed workers, higher job demands than paid employees and, overall, worse job outcomes than both.
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Notes
Using data for the EU-15, Millán et al. (2018) observe that DSEW are, compared with ISE, less job satisfied in terms of type of work, number of working hours, working times and working conditions and environment.
This set includes the EU-28 together, 4 candidate countries (Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Turkey), 1 potential candidate country (Kosovo) and 1 European Free Trade Association (EFTA) country (Norway).
Depending on country size and national arrangements, the sample ranges from 1000 to 4000 workers per country.
This figure varies substantially across European countries. Thus, it rises above 20% in countries such as Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Romania and Slovakia. By contrast, this figure lies below 5% in countries such as Denmark, Estonia, Sweden and the UK.
Excluded items are available upon request.
The only exception is the item JO5, which presents a primary loading of 0.32 and is determined to remain in the model for conceptual reasons. No other relevant loadings are identified for this item.
See subsection 3.2.
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Acknowledgements
All authors contributed equally to the manuscript. The authors would like to thank Concepción Román, Manuel E. Gegúndez, the guest editors (Andrew Burke and Marc Cowling) and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments that contributed substantially to the development of this paper. The work also has benefited from comments from participants at the 4thGlobal Workshop on Freelancing & Independent Professional Research (Brighton, UK) in 2016, where an earlier version of this paper was presented. This paper is part of Leonel Caçador-Rodrigues’s doctoral dissertation, which has been written under the framework of the PhD Program in Economics, Business, Finance and Computer Science at the University of Huelva and the International University of Andalusia, Spain.
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This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad) under Grant numbers ECO2017-86305-C4-2-R and ECO2017-86402-C2-2-R, Regional Government of Andalusia (Junta de Andalucía) through Research Group SEJ-487 (Spanish Entrepreneurship Research Group (SERG)) and University of Huelva through Research and Transfer Policy Strategy (Estrategia de Política de Investigación y Transferencia) 2018.
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Millán, A., Millán, J.M. & Caçador-Rodrigues, L. Disclosing ‘masked employees’ in Europe: job control, job demands and job outcomes of ‘dependent self-employed workers’. Small Bus Econ 55, 461–474 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-019-00245-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-019-00245-7