Indications are that the long-term decline of self-employment has come to a halt in the 1970s in the advanced industrialized economies. In this paper, we challenge the currently popular argument that the recent revival of self-employment represents an effective answer to the problems of slow economic growth and unemployment. Our time-series regression analysis of aggregate self-employment rates in eight major OECD countries from the early 1950s to 1987 suggests that rising self-employment may be a response to deficiencies in labour markets rather than a sign of economic vitality.

Conventional discourses about self-employment are unsatisfactory since there is no clear acknowledgment of its heterogeneity. Interpretations tend to refer to an average type that does not exist in practice, and there are problems of coherence, demarcations, and overlap. Examining macro-level patterns of self-employment, a number of patterns emerge. First, self-employment includes both marginal and privileged positions, within individual countries and also in international comparisons. It can put people at risk of precariousness and poverty or it can be a vehicle to bring wealth to individuals and enterprises, contributing jobs and economic growth to society. Second, people increasingly switch between wage- or salary-dependent labor and self-employment and hybrid forms of employment, as forms of micro entrepreneurship are combined with dependent labor. Third, internationally, the ratio of women in solo self-employment is higher than that of men. Fourth, remarkable differences exist at the level of solo self-employment.

The paper deals with self-employment of one-(wo)man-firms as the smallest units of entrepreneurial companies and focuses at the blurred boundaries between dependent work and self-employment. We call the overlapping identities hybrid entrepreneurs. Based on the collected data it can be shown that the hybrid self-employed differ significantly from non-hybrid ‘regular’ entrepreneurs with respect to selected socio-demographic characteristics, professional, as well as company-specific factors. The paper takes up several of the findings and tries to discuss them in a framework of (micro) organizations, institutions and self-employment. Taking the case of hybrid employment fosters crucial and provoking questions for an appropriate understanding of the division of enterprises and occupations.

Current debates about the gig economy pay increasing attention to the heterogeneity of platform workers. Using a large sample of 10,574 freelancers from an international online labor market, this article investigates the association between individual work values and career trajectories, constructed as a combination of current employment status and future career intentions. The authors consider not only the pure form of freelancing but also hybrid models when people have multiple jobs, combining freelancing with a regular job as an employee (moonlighters) or starting their own business with hired employees (entrepreneurs). The findings suggest that freelancers, moonlighters, and entrepreneurs have distinct work value profiles reflecting the opportunities and constraints in gaining specific rewards from their work. In contrast to moonlighters, freelancers and entrepreneurs are similar in their relative preference for intrinsic values and ignoring security values. In contrast to freelancers, entrepreneurs and moonlighters value social recognition but do not seek a comfortable job. In contrast to entrepreneurs, freelancers and moonlighters prefer a job that meets their abilities. The authors argue that different work values must be better acknowledged when trying to reflect adequately on participation and mobility in the gig economy. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of the gig economy as well as to the general literature on the role of work values in labor markets.