Self-employment among older workers

A Boston College Department of Economics working paper, “Self-Employment Transitions among Older Workers with Career Jobs,” (PDF) by Michael D. Giandria, Kevin E. Cahill, and Joseph F. Quinn, finds an increase in levels of self-employment as workers near retirement age. The study found that the percentage of self-employed men between the age of 51 and 61 rose from 20 percent in 1992 to one-third of the male workforce in 2004. There was also a rise in self-employment among older women, from 10 percent in 1992 to 15 percent in 2004. According to the authors, the “rise in self employment later in life is a result of a combination of factors, including the fact that self-employed workers tend to stay in the labor force longer than wage-and-salary workers and that more wage-and-salary workers switch into self employment later in life than vice versa.” (17)