The Employment Dynamics of Less Educated Men in the United States: The Role of Self-Employment

Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I construct a sample of less educated men, all of whom are observed from age 22 to age 41, and examine the employment dynamics with a particular focus on the role of self-employment. I find that ¡°ever self-employed¡± workers tend to spend less time in nonemployment after they experience self-employment. The results from my dynamic logit model confirm the positive aspects of self-employment by indicating that men who were self-employed in the previous year are less likely than those who were paid workers to be nonemployed in the next year.self-employment; less educated men