A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE YOUNG SELF-EMPLOYED IN AUSTRALIA AND THE UNITED-STATES

This paper examines the pattern of self-employment in Australia and th e United States. We particularly focus on the movement of young people in and out of self-employment using comparable longitudinal data from the two countries. We find that the forces that influence whether a p erson becomes self-employed are broadly similar: in both countries ski lled manual workers, males and older workers were particularly likely to move to self-employment. We also find that previous firm size, prev ious union status and previous earnings are important determinants of transitions to self-employment. The main difference we observe is that additional years of schooling had a positive impact on the probabilit y of being self-employed in the US but were not a significant influenc e in Australia. However, the factors influencing the probability of le aving self-employment are different across the two countries.