Self-employment and well-being across institutional contexts

This paper investigates whether the relationship between a person's occupational status and wellbeing differs across countries with varying institutional contexts. We find that the relationship between job and life satisfaction of self-employed people as well as of paid employees varies considerably across countries. Our results indicate that entrepreneurship-friendly institutions in a country are conducive to the well-being of those who are self-employed. Remarkably, the quality of entrepreneurial institutions also increases the levels of well-being of paid employees, but the effect is more pronounced for the self-employed.