Pushed into necessity? Labor market inequality and entrepreneurship of disadvantaged group

Joanna Tyrowicz and Magdalena Smyk

No 6, GRAPE Working Papers from GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics

Abstract: Theoretical literature on entrepreneurship hints that labor market inequality may constitute a relevant push factor for necessity self-employment, as opposed to aspirational self-employment. Drawing on empirical confirmation, this insight is used in many policy recommendations. We provide a new approach to test and quantify the link between labor market inequality and self-employment. We exploit rich and diverse international data on patterns of self-employment from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. We focus on measures of labor market inequality for women, utilizing estimates of adjusted gender wage and gender employment gap, comparable for a large selection of countries and years. Our results show that greater gender disparities in access to and in compensation for wage employment are associated with necessity self-employment, but the effect is small. We find no link for the aspirational self-employment.

Keywords: female entrepreneurship; gender wage gap; gender employment gap; GEM (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 J16 L26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fme:wpaper:6

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