Job Quality and Self-Employment: Is it (Still) Better to Work for Yourself?

There has been a longstanding debate about whether self-employment represents good work', but little direct evidence on intrinsic job quality in any detail. This essay reports research using data from the UK Skills and Employment Surveys to compare intrinsic job quality and job satisfaction among employees and the self-employed. It finds that self-employment involves higher intrinsic job quality and job satisfaction than working as an employee, although self-employed people work harder, with less training, and with less satisfaction about their job security. More recently, over the 2006-2012 period, the quality of self-employment has deteriorated. However, the intrinsic quality of self-employment generally improved over the past two decades (compared with those working as employees), even if the relative advantages have fallen since 2006.