Self-employed workers’ relative job quality is a matter of theoretical and policy debate. Whereas the precarity framework highlights employees’ good job quality especially compared to independent contractors, this study conceptualizes “self-employment/independent contractor configurations” as distinct groups of workers who differ in whether they report being self-employed and/or independent contractors, with different job quality implications. Based on multivariable analyses of data on multiple job quality dimensions (perceived job insecurity, autonomy, scheduling flexibility, satisfaction with fringe benefits, income), the results indicate the precarity framework best accounts for job quality dimensions like satisfaction with fringe benefits. Yet, job quality variation among self-employed workers is best captured by the conceptualization and complementary model I develop: for instance, although autonomy is hailed as a benefit of self-employment, independent contractors who do not identify as self-employed perceive less autonomy than self-employed independent contractors and similar levels as employees. Implications are discussed.
AbrahamKGHousemanSN (2020) Contingent and alternative employment: Lessons from the Contingent Worker Supplement. Report prepared for the U.S. Department of Labor. Available at: https://research.upjohn.org/reports/270 (accessed 3 February 2025).
2.
AbrahamKGHaltiwangerJSanduskyK, et al. (2021) Measuring the gig economy: Current knowledge and open issues. In: CorradoCHaskelJMirandaJ, et al. (eds) Measuring and Accounting for Innovation in the 21st Century. University of Chicago Press, pp. 257–298.
3.
AbrahamKGHershbeinBHousemanSN, et al. (2024) The independent contractor workforce: New evidence on its size and composition and ways to improve its measurement in household surveys. ILR Review77(3): 336–365.
4.
AndersonCJPontussonJ (2007) Workers, worries and welfare states: Social protection and job insecurity in 15 OECD countries. European Journal of Political Research46(2): 211–235.
5.
AugusteDRollSDespardM (2023) The precarity of self-employment among low-and moderate-income households. Social Forces101(3): 1081–1115.
6.
AugusteDRollSDespardM (2024) Democratizing the economy or introducing economic risk? Gig work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Work and Occupations51(4): 550–606.
7.
BergJ (2016) Income security in the on-demand economy: Findings and policy lessons from a survey of crowdworkers. Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal37(3): 543–576.
8.
BoeriTGiupponiGKruegerAB, et al. (2020) Solo self-employment and alternative work arrangements: A cross-country perspective on the changing composition of jobs. Journal of Economic Perspectives34(1): 170–195.
9.
BozzonRMurgiaA (2022) Independent or dependent? European labour statistics and their (in)ability to identify forms of dependency in self-employment. Social Indicators Research160(1): 199–226.
10.
BreggerJE (1996) Measuring self-employment in the United States. Monthly Labor Review119: 3–9.
11.
CohanySR (1998) Workers in alternative employment arrangements: A second look. Monthly Labor Review121(11): 3–21.
12.
ConenWSchippersJ (2019) Self-employment: Between freedom and insecurity. In: ConenWSchippersJ (eds) Self-Employment as Precarious Work: A European Perspective. Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 1–21.
13.
DavidovGAlon-ShenkerP (2022) The ABC test: A new model for employment status determination?Industrial Law Journal51(2): 235–276.
14.
DonovanSABradleyDHShimabukuruJO (2017) What does the gig economy mean for workers? Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report R44365. Available at: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44365 (accessed 3 February 2025).
FullertonASWallaceM (2007) Traversing the flexible turn: US workers’ perceptions of job security, 1977–2002. Social Science Research36(1): 201–221.
18.
GallieD (2017) The quality of work in a changing labour market. Social Policy and Administration51(2): 226–243.
19.
GallieDZhouY (2013) Job control, work intensity, and work stress. In: GallieD (ed.) Economic Crisis, Quality of Work and Social Integration: The European Experience. Oxford University Press, pp. 115–141.
GlavinPBiermanASchiemanS (2021) Über-alienated: Powerless and alone in the gig economy. Work and Occupations48(4): 399–431.
22.
GundertSLeschkeJ (2024) Challenges and potentials of evaluating platform work against established job-quality measures. Economic and Industrial Democracy45(3): 696–718.
23.
HippLBernhardtJAllmendingerJ (2015) Institutions and the prevalence of nonstandard employment. Socio-Economic Review13(2): 351–377.
HolmanD (2013) Job types and job quality in Europe. Human Relations66(4): 475–502.
26.
HorowitzJ (2016) Dimensions of job quality, mechanisms, and subjective well-being in the United States. Sociological Forum31(2): 419–440.
27.
IgoeH (2020) “I know it when I see it”: The NLRB’s glaring inconsistencies when classifying workers. Hofstra Labor and Employment Law Journal38: 285–312.
KallebergAL (2000) Nonstandard employment relations: Part-time, temporary and contract work. Annual Review of Sociology26: 341–365.
30.
KallebergAL (2011) Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment Systems in the United States, 1970s–2000s. Russell Sage Foundation.
31.
KallebergAL (2018) Precarious Lives: Job Insecurity and Well-Being in Rich Democracies. Polity.
32.
KallebergALDunnM (2016) Good jobs, bad jobs in the gig economy. Perspectives on Work74: 10–13.
33.
KallebergALReskinBFHudsonK (2000) Bad jobs in America: Standard and nonstandard employment relations and job quality in the United States. American Sociological Review65(2): 256–278.
34.
KatzLFKruegerAB (2019) The rise and nature of alternative work arrangements in the United States, 1995–2015. ILR Review72(2): 382–416.
35.
KlandermansBHesselinkJKVan VuurenT (2010) Employment status and job insecurity: On the subjective appraisal of an objective status. Economic and Industrial Democracy31(4): 557–577.
36.
KuhnKMMalekiA (2017) Micro-entrepreneurs, dependent contractors, and instaserfs: Understanding online labor platform workforces. Academy of Management Perspectives31(3): 183–200.
37.
LongJSFreeseJ (2006) Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables Using Stata (Vol. 7). Stata Press.
38.
LongJSMustilloSA (2021) Using predictions and marginal effects to compare groups in regression models for binary outcomes. Sociological Methods and Research50(3): 1284–1320.
39.
LoweTS (2018) Perceived job and labor market insecurity in the United States: An assessment of workers’ attitudes from 2002 to 2014. Work and Occupations45(3): 313–345.
40.
MaiQ (2017) Precarious work in Europe: Assessing cross-national differences and institutional determinants of work precarity in 32 countries. In: KallebergALVallasSP (eds) Precarious Work (Research in the Sociology of Work, 31). Emerald Publishing, pp. 273–306.
41.
ManningAMazeineG (2024) Subjective job insecurity and the rise of the precariat: Evidence from the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. The Review of Economics and Statistics106(3): 748–761.
42.
MasAPallaisA (2020) Alternative work arrangements. Annual Review of Economics12: 631–658.
43.
Muñoz de BustilloRFernández-MacíasEEsteveF, et al. (2011) “E pluribus unum”? A critical survey of job quality indicators. Socio-Economic Review9(3): 447–475.
PeckhamTFlahertyBHajatA, et al. (2022) What does non-standard employment look like in the United States? An empirical typology of employment quality. Social Indicators Research163: 555–583.
46.
RavenelleAJ (2019) Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy. University of California Press.
47.
ReynoldsJKincaidR (2023) Gig work and the pandemic: Looking for good pay from bad jobs during the COVID-19 crisis. Work and Occupations50(1): 60–96.
48.
RodgersG (1989) Precarious work in Western Europe: The state of the debate. In: RodgersGRodgersJ (eds) Precarious Jobs in Labour Market Regulation: The Growth of Atypical Employment in Western Europe. International Labour Organization, pp. 1–16.
49.
RosenblatAStarkL (2016) Algorithmic labor and information asymmetries: A case study of Uber’s drivers. International Journal of Communication10: 3758–3784.
50.
SchippersJ (2019) Labour market flexibility, self-employment and precariousness. In: ConenWSchippersJ (eds) Self-Employment as Precarious Work: A European Perspective. Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 23–29.
51.
SchorJBAttwood-CharlesWCansoyM, et al. (2020) Dependence and precarity in the platform economy. Theory and Society49(5): 833–861.
SmithTWDavernMFreeseJ, et al. (2019) General Social Surveys, 1972–2018 [codebook]. Principal Investigator, TW Smith; Co-Principal Investigators, M Davern, J Freese and SL Morgan; Sponsored by National Science Foundation–NORC ed.–Chicago: NORC. 1 codebook (3758 pp.) (National Data Program for the Social Sciences, no. 25).
54.
SmithVHalpinB (2019) Non-standard work and non-standard workers. In: CallG (ed.) Handbook of the Politics of Labour, Work and Employment. Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 281–297.
55.
SpreitzerGMCameronLGarrettL (2017) Alternative work arrangements: Two images of the new world of work. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior4: 473–499.
56.
StataCorp (2019) Stata statistical software: Release 16.1. StataCorp LLC.
57.
ThelenK (2019) The American precariat: U.S. capitalism in comparative perspective. Perspectives on Politics17(1): 5–27.
58.
United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (2018) Contingent and alternative employment arrangements summary. Available at: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/conemp.nr0.htm (accessed 3 February 2025).
United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) (2015) Contingent workforce: size, characteristics, earnings, and benefits. GAO-15-168R. Available at: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-15-168r (accessed 3 February 2025).
61.
VallasSSchorJB (2020) What do platforms do? Understanding the gig economy. Annual Review of Sociology46: 273–294.
62.
VoskoLF (2010) Managing the Margins: Gender, Citizenship, and the International Regulation of Precarious Employment. Oxford University Press.
63.
VoskoLFZukewichNCranfordC (2003) Precarious jobs: A new typology of employment. Perspectives on Labour and Income4(10).
