A Statistical Portrait of the Workers at the Boundaries of Employment and Self-employment in Europe. Who Are They and What Do They Do?

This chapter presents an overview of the key trends in self-employment over the past two decades in Europe, with a particular focus on the influence of socio-demographic factors, economic sectors, and types of occupation. Furthermore, it provides a statistically derived description of the heterogeneous job conditions and future of employment positions at the boundaries between self-employment and salaried employment, focusing on three categories: involuntary self-employment, dependent self-employment, and hybrid entrepreneurship. The analysis is based on the European Labour Force Survey (primarily the 2017 ad hoc module on self-employment).