by Kevin Caraher and Enrico Reuter

Rachel Mantell, a self-employed management consult, earns more than £100,000 per year, can afford to spend £6,000 on holidays, and is sharing her good fortune by hosting refugees in her home. At the same time, Don Lane, a self-employed “franchisee” of the delivery company DPD, died in January 2018 because he had no sick leave and no one to replace his work shift and thus missed an urgently needed hospital appointment.

These admittedly extreme examples illustrate the differing experiences and outcomes that come with self-employment. In some cases, self-employment can be the foundation for a fulfilled work life with a generous income, a high degree of autonomy and the ability to flexibly pursue other non-work interests. In others, self-employment can be the foundation for a life of misery, marked by poverty, precarity and the loss of control over one’s personal circumstances. Self-employment is thus diverse and ambivalent in at least two ways: First, with respect to the working conditions of the self-employed, notably the ‘economic security issues’ that are caused by irregular income. Second, regarding access to the collective social protection system, in particular for those self-employed whose income is insufficient to shield themselves individually from the vagaries of the work life by saving money or accessing private insurance.

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