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Self-Employment, Personal Values, and Varieties of Happiness-Unhappiness

July 2017
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 23(3)

Project: self-employment

Authors:

The University of Sheffield

This study compares personal values and forms of happiness between self-employed workers and those employed in an organization. Values are examined through Schwartz's (1999) established model, and happiness is measured in terms of personal flourishing and both job-specific and general hedonic well-being. In two nationally representative samples, self-employed workers are found to value self-direction and stimulation in their lives to a significantly greater degree than do organizational employees, but not to differ in other types of value. Well-being differences are predicted to depend on whether or not workers supervise others, such that any well-being advantages of self-employment are expected to occur only for self-employed workers without subordinates. As predicted, job satisfaction in self-employment is found to exceed that of organizational workers primarily for those who do not supervise others. In respect of personal flourishing, self-employed workers report significantly greater accomplishment in their lives, and that difference is again found only for workers without supervisory responsibility. However, strain experienced in a job and context-free hedonic well-being are found to be similar between self- and organizational employment. Refinements are proposed to research methods and practical procedures. (PsycINFO Database Record

Context-Free Hedonic Well-Being: Organizational Versus Self-Employed Workers

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Journal of Occupational Health

Psychology

Self-Employment, Personal Values, and Varieties of

Happiness–Unhappiness

Peter Warr

Online First Publication, July 27, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000095

CITATION

Warr, P. (2017, July 27). Self-Employment, Personal Values, and Varieties of Happiness–

Unhappiness. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. Advance online publication.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000095

Self-Employment, Personal Values, and Varieties of Happiness–Unhappiness

Peter Warr

University of Sheffield

This study compares personal values and forms of happiness between self-employed workers and those

employed in an organization. Values are examined through Schwartz’s (1999) established model, and

happiness is measured in terms of personal flourishing and both job-specific and general hedonic

well-being. In two nationally representative samples, self-employed workers are found to value self-

direction and stimulation in their lives to a significantly greater degree than do organizational employees,

but not to differ in other types of value. Well-being differences are predicted to depend on whether or

not workers supervise others, such that any well-being advantages of self-employment are expected to

occur only for self-employed workers without subordinates. As predicted, job satisfaction in self-

employment is found to exceed that of organizational workers primarily for those who do not supervise

others. In respect of personal flourishing, self-employed workers report significantly greater accomplish-

ment in their lives, and that difference is again found only for workers without supervisory responsibility.

However, strain experienced in a job and context-free hedonic well-being are found to be similar between

self- and organizational employment. Refinements are proposed to research methods and practical

procedures.

Keywords: self-employment, happiness, well-being, flourishing, job satisfaction

Around 32 million people in the European Union are self-

employed (European Commission, 2016), including more than 4.5

million in the United Kingdom (Office of National Statistics,

2017), as are around 15 million in the United States (Hipple,

2010).

However, as pointed out by Schonfeld and Mazzola

(2015), psychological research into the causes and consequences

of this nonstandard type of work has been extremely limited.

Theories of work motivation, occupational choice, and career

development can benefit from comparisons between individuals in

the two roles, and additional psychological evidence is essential to

assess claims about the benefits and costs of working for oneself.

In this underresearched area, the present article contributes to

knowledge about three questions. First, do self-employed individ-

uals differ from those in organizational employment by having

distinctive personal values that may motivate them to work for

themselves? Second, is the greater job satisfaction of self-

employed workers restricted to those who have no supervisory

responsibility? And third, if self-employed individuals experience

greater well-being in their jobs, do mental health advantages

extend more generally to happiness in their lives as a whole?

Self-employed workers hold positions that range widely from

unskilled manual to managerial and professional. In comparison

with organizational workers, they typically undertake more weekly

hours on the job and are more likely to be male (e.g., European

Commission, 2016; Hipple, 2010). The majority have no staff—

around two thirds in Europe (European Commission, 2016) and

three quarters in the United States (see Footnote 1)—and only a

minority would prefer to work for an organization—17% in

D’Arcy and Gardiner’s (2014) U.K. sample.

Self-employment levels are partly driven by demographic influ-

ences on labor force composition. For example, increases in life

span and the lengthening of working lives can lead to more people

working for themselves because self-employed individuals are on

average older than those in organizational jobs (e.g., European

Commission, 2016; Hipple, 2010). And as more women move into

paid work, many (e.g., motivated by family commitments) seek

flexible working hours and the possibility of self-employed in-

come generation from home (e.g., Carr, 1996; Craig, Powell, &

Cortis, 2012). Increases in the number of dual- or multi-earner

families can also encourage self-employment by removing the

need for one person’s job to provide an income large enough to

support an entire household.

Higher levels of self-employment are additionally promoted by

commercial and technological developments. For example, the

decline of manufacturing employment, expansion of the service

sector, and Internet connectivity on a global scale have created

new job possibilities which are often unlike traditional occupa-

tions.

Self-Employed Jobs and Psychological Health

Some disadvantages of self-employment are clear. Working for

oneself rules out employer-provided sick pay, pension, holiday and

other benefits. Self-employed workers on average earn less than

Steve Hipple has kindly made available detailed information about the

years following his 2010 article.

These analyses have not previously been presented in any form; data are

publicly available at www.europeansocialsurvey.org. Ute Stephan’s con-

tribution to initial sampling discussions is much appreciated.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Peter

Warr, Institute of Work Psychology, Sheffield University Management

School, University of Sheffield, Conduit Road, Sheffield S10 1FL,

United Kingdom. E-mail: p.warr@sheffield.ac.uk

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This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

2017, Vol. 0, No. 999, 000 1076-8998/17/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000095

those in organizational jobs (Green & Mostafa, 2012), and in-

creased variability of income across time can create intermittently

high levels of anxiety. Many new enterprises created by self-

employed individuals are short-lived (e.g., European Commission,

2016).

Self-employed workers are widely thought to be under particu-

larly high strain from commercial insecurity, a heavy decision-

making burden and lack of employer-provided benefits. Schonfeld

and Mazzola (2015) have described how people working for

themselves can encounter difficult situations and experience neg-

ative feelings. They point out that many stressors in self-

employment are similar to those in organizational jobs, and com-

parative studies have shown that the strain felt in self-employed

and organizational work is often at a similar level (Andersson,

2008; Baron, Franklin, & Hmieleski, 2016; Prottas & Thompson,

2006; Tuttle & Garr, 2009) or significantly lower in self-

employment (Baron et al., 2016; Hessels, Rietveld, & Van der

Zwan, 2017; Tetrick, Slack, Da Silva, & Sinclair, 2000). Harmful

influences from a job to home-life also appear overall not to differ

between self- and organizational employment, although patterns

vary between different family situations, self-employed roles, and

the measures applied (König & Cesinger, 2015; Schieman, Whit-

estone, & Van Gundy, 2006).

Well-being comparisons between the two roles have most

often been made in terms of job satisfaction, and research has

found that self-employed workers as a whole report signifi-

cantly greater satisfaction with their job than do those paid by

an organization. This pattern has been observed in North Amer-

ica (e.g., Hundley, 2001; Katz, 1993; Prottas & Thompson,

2006; Tetrick et al., 2000), Finland (Hytti, Kautonen, & Akola.

2013), Sweden (Andersson, 2008), the United Kingdom

(Blanchflower & Oswald, 1998; Smeaton, 2003), and in re-

search extending across a range of countries (Benz & Frey,

2008; Lange, 2012). Other studies have found that the greater

job satisfaction of self-employed workers is largely accounted

for by their raised level of job autonomy (Hytti et al., 2013;

Warr & Inceoglu, in press), and possibly by reduced role

ambiguity and conflict (Tetrick et al., 2000).

However, research into self-employment has failed to distin-

guish between workers who do and do not have responsibility for

other people (Schjoedt, 2009; Schonfeld & Mazzola, 2015), and

possible differences require investigation. In studies of workers in

organizational (rather than self-) employment, the characteristics

of a job and employees’ job well-being have been shown to differ

between workers who supervise others and those who do not. For

instance, organizational workers in supervisory roles have more

autonomy than nonmanagers and they report greater job satisfac-

tion (e.g., Robie, Ryan, Schmieder, Parra, & Smith, 1998; Schjo-

edt, 2009; Tetrick et al., 2000). Given that organizational employ-

ees who supervise others have greater job satisfaction than do

nonsupervisory organizational workers, job satisfaction in self-

employment might also differ according to whether or not self-

employed individuals supervise other workers. Implications of this

possibility are considered below, and for the first time well-being

comparisons between self-employed and organizational workers

will be made between individuals differentiated by supervisory

responsibility.

Varieties of Happiness

Although the research cited above indicates that self-employed

workers are more satisfied in their jobs, no self-employment stud-

ies have examined hedonic happiness of a more general kind.

Furthermore, an additional form of happiness, that of flourishing,

has recently been emphasized by nonoccupational researchers and

is considered here in self-employment for the first time.

Originating primarily in Aristotle’s (384 BC to 322 BC) discus-

sion of “eudaimonia”—a good, virtuous, or fulfilled life (e.g.,

Hughes, 2001)—the construct has been developed and modified by

psychologists in terms of “flourishing” (e.g., Keyes, 2002; Selig-

man, 2011; Waterman, 1993). This has been treated in different

ways by different authors, often without Aristotle’s emphasis on

virtuous behavior, and the definition and components of flourish-

ing have been extensively debated (e.g., Huta & Waterman, 2014;

Kashdan, Biswas-Diener, & King, 2008; Waterman, 2008).

Flourishing is widely considered to involve bodily and/or men-

tal activity which is in some way important or perhaps fundamen-

tal to the person. Thus, Seligman (2002) introduced the notion of

“authentic happiness” deriving from the use of one’s personal

strengths and virtues to achieve goals that have intrinsic value

beyond mere pleasure; he subsequently (Seligman, 2011) preferred

the label flourishing, and parallel perspectives have used the terms

self-realization (Waterman, 1993) and self-validation (Warr,

2007). In the absence of general agreement about the most appro-

priate definition of flourishing, different scholars have emphasized

different elements, often moving beyond Aristotle’s original con-

cept of eudaimonia. Current models may be brought together in the

following six aspects:

Component 1: Engagement in the World

Seligman (2011) and other researchers into flourishing empha-

size involvement in issues beyond oneself. Short-term experiences

of engagement have been analyzed in terms of “flow”— becoming

psychologically immersed in a current activity (Csikszentmihalyi,

1990)—and involvement in a personal project is central to the

model of, for instance, McGregor and Little (1998). Extended

engagement is sometimes viewed as “thriving,” perhaps including

a desire for new learning and personal development (e.g., Keyes,

2002; Porath, Spreitzer, Gibson, & Garnett, 2012). Effort-

expenditure has long been viewed as contributing to happiness

despite current strain, if that effort is directed at outcomes which

are personally valued (e.g., Ferguson, 1966/1767).

Component 2: Experiencing Meaning or Purpose in Life

Within Aristotle’s perspective is a second aspect of flourish-

ing—the experience of personal meaning in activity perceived as

worthwhile or virtuous (Baumeister, Vohs, Aaker, & Garbinsky,

2013; Diener et al., 2010; Huppert & So, 2013; Keyes, 2002; King,

Hicks, Krull, & Del Gaiso, 2006; McGregor & Little, 1998; Rosso,

Dekas, & Wrzesniewski, 2010; Ryff, 1989; Seligman, 2011; Warr,

2007; Waterman, 1993). Personal meaning derives from the con-

tribution of mental or physical activity to a current set of goals or

self-concept (e.g., Emmons, 2002) such that themes of intrinsic

motivation, identity, or perceived self-worth are often part of

psychological accounts in this area.

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2WARR

Component 3: Autonomous Self-Regulation

Several perspectives on flourishing include personal autonomy

in thought and action. For example, Ryff (1989) and Ryff and

Keyes (1995) have argued that self-actualization involves func-

tioning which is internally controlled rather than determined by

external pressures so that perceived freedom in decision making is

often considered essential within the construct. More generally,

autonomous self-regulation has long been central to models of

positive mental health, especially in Western countries (e.g., Ja-

hoda, 1958; Warr, 1987).

Component 4: Being Competent in Valued Respects

Some writers have drawn attention to a person’s perceived

effectiveness in personally important activities (e.g., Diener et al.,

2010; Huppert & So, 2013; Keyes, 2002; Ryff, 1989; Seligman,

2011). This feature draws from notions of self-efficacy (e.g., Ban-

dura, 1997) and environmental mastery (e.g., Jahoda, 1958)—a sense

that in a number of desired respects one is able to lead an effective

life.

Component 5: Having Vitality

Being “full of life” is present in several psychologists’ models

of flourishing. For Porath et al. (2012), people who are thriving

report high levels of energy and liveliness, and for Keyes (2002),

the opposite of flourishing is described as languishing.

Component 6: Having Positive Relations with Others

Some accounts of flourishing additionally include forms of

social interaction. Social well-being is viewed by Keyes (2002) in

terms of five dimensions—social integration, social contribution,

social coherence, social actualization, and social acceptance—and

some or all of these have been included in different models of

flourishing (Diener et al., 2010; Huppert & So, 2013; Ryff, 1989;

Seligman, 2011).

In overview, a comprehensive account of happiness can be seen

to extend beyond hedonic forms like job or life satisfaction into

aspects of flourishing. Different theorists emphasize some flour-

ishing elements more than others, and general agreement on con-

tent has yet to emerge. The importance here of the construct is that

we know very little about flourishing in self-employment. This

article presents hypotheses and findings for the first time.

As illustrated in the preceding text, psychologists’ perspectives

on flourishing have in part moved away from Aristotle’s notion of

eudaimonic virtue and fulfilment. The first three flourishing com-

ponents (engagement, meaning, and autonomy) reflect Aristotle’s

thinking, but personal competence, vitality, and social relation-

ships (Components 4, 5, and 6) lack a direct concern for activity

that is potentially virtuous. It may therefore be conceptually and

empirically helpful to separate eudaimonic types of flourishing

(Components 1, 2, and 3) from those which are noneudaimonic

(Components 4, 5, and 6). The two types will be distinguished in

analyses that follow.

Possible Origins of Self-Employment Within the Person

Initially, the article addresses the question: why do some

people work for themselves rather than becoming an employee

of an organization? Potential influences derive both from a

person’s national and local environment and from his or her

own characteristics. Nation-level comparisons have revealed

that self-employment increases in poor economic conditions

and in high unemployment (Bögenhold & Staber, 1991; Hev-

enstone, 2010), but individual-level research has so far been

limited to reports by self-employed workers without obtaining

parallel information from others who are employed. Studies

have emphasized a desire for independence (Dawson, Henley,

& Latreille, 2014; Smeaton, 2003), but in some cases a transi-

tion into self-employment is motivated primarily by the need

for a job of some kind in the absence of available employed

positions. Self-employment undertaken for that reason is often

referred to as arising from necessity rather than opportunity,

and Finnish “necessity” self-employed workers were found by

Kautonen and Palmroos (2010) to be less satisfied with their

self-employed position than were opportunity workers. The

proportion of self-employment arising from necessity is likely

to depend on local economic conditions and was estimated to be

around 10% in the study by Kautonen and Palmroos (2010).

More widely, comparisons are needed between self-employed

and organizational workers in terms of specific preferences, often

described by psychologists as personal values. Kluckhohn’s (1951)

definition of a value as a “conception, explicit or implicit, . . . of

the desirable that influences the selection from available means,

modes, and ends of action” has served as the basis of later

accounts, such as a “conception of the desirable” (Schwartz, 1999)

or a “preference for one state of affairs over others” (Hofstede,

1984). In some cases, values are within moral, religious or social

codes, but they often primarily represent personal preferences

(e.g., Rohan, 2000; Rokeach, 1973). Values can serve as motiva-

tional guides for self-regulation and can affect happiness or un-

happiness by their impact on the priority and content of thoughts

and actions. Research into job satisfaction among workers in

organizational employment has shown that the value attached to

job features can moderate correlations between those features and

job well-being (e.g., Hackman & Lawler, 1971; Loher, Noe,

Moeller, & Fitzgerald, 1985).

Research into the values of self-employed workers has been

very limited and has focused almost entirely on the minority who

are explicitly “entrepreneurs”— defined narrowly in terms of cre-

ating and expanding one or more companies. Individuals identified

as members of the entrepreneurial subset have been found partic-

ularly to seek autonomy, self-direction, high financial rewards, and

personal influence on their income; entrepreneurs are also more

comfortable with competitive business activity and less concerned

about personal security, conformity, and tradition (e.g., Beugels-

dijk & Noorderhaven, 2005; Georgievski, Ascalon, & Stephan,

2011; Rahim, 1996; Shane, Locke, & Collins, 2003). Current

knowledge about values in self- and organizational employment

derives only from entrepreneurs, and information is still required

about the wider category of self-employed workers as a whole;

many people in that category have no entrepreneurial, company-

expanding aspirations. This article will for the first time investigate

context-free values among self-employed people in general.

Examining values that are narrow-scope rather than context-

free, Warr and Inceoglu (in press) found that self-employed work-

ers in comparison with nonmanagerial employees more strongly

preferred challenging aspects of a job, such as difficult goals and

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SELF-EMPLOYMENT, VALUES, AND HAPPINESS

interpersonal competition, but that the two groups did not differ in

their preference for less demanding features, such as having a

comfortable workplace or receiving social support. We can predict

a replication of this variegated pattern for more wide-ranging

values, such that in their lives as a whole self-employed individ-

uals more strongly desire independence and self-determination but

that other types of value are similar between the groups.

This possibility can be investigated in terms of Schwartz’s

(1999) established framework of value types. The framework’s

“basic values” (viewed as motivators and guides for action) range

across, for instance, hedonism, benevolence, and conformity and

include a preference for self-direction, which is defined as a desire

for independent and innovative thought and action and for explo-

ration of new possibilities. Such a value may be expected to be

stronger in workers who move into self-employment. Other values

in Schwartz’s framework (listed in Table 2), can be important in

many jobs, but for those additional preferences there appears to be

no rationale for expecting differences between workers who are

self-employed versus those in employing organizations. The arti-

cle’s first hypothesis thus differentiates between self-direction and

other kinds of personal values. Hypothesis 1a predicts that people

working for themselves will more strongly value self-direction in

their lives, and Hypothesis 1b expects that all other values in

Schwartz’s model will not differ between self-employed and or-

ganizational workers.

Happiness in Self-Employment Versus

Organizational Work

The article’s other hypotheses concern possible differences be-

tween organizational and self-employed workers in the several

forms of happiness introduced earlier. For instance, the present

prediction that self-employed workers will more strongly value

self-direction in their lives also points to greater job satisfaction in

that group. Research by Warr and Inceoglu (in press) examined the

closeness of fit between valued and actual job characteristics.

Self-employed and organizational workers were found to experi-

ence very similar fit between valued and actual content in many

respects, but workers in self-employment reported significantly

better fit in features which require responses to challenging de-

mands. Given that better fit between valued and actual content is

in general linked to greater job satisfaction (e.g., Kristof-Brown,

Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005) and that challenging job features

are more congruent with values held in self-employment, greater

job well-being can be expected when working for oneself. Other

support for that expectation has been presented above in terms of

benefits from enhanced autonomy in self-employment (e.g., Hytti

et al., 2013), permitting job activities to be adjusted to better fit

with personal preferences and abilities. Research evidence and

argument thus suggest that job satisfaction will in general be

greater in self-employment than in organizational work, and a

significant difference is expected here (Hypothesis 2a).

It is also predicted that greater job satisfaction will occur only

for self-employed workers without supervisory responsibility and

will not be found in separate comparisons between self-employed

and organizational workers in supervisory positions. For workers

without subordinates (the nonsupervisors), being self-employed is

sharply different from being an organizational employee. In an

organization, nonsupervisors are directed by managers and work

within policies and procedures that have been specified for them.

On the other hand, self-employed nonsupervisors must actively

create their own policies and must continuously initiate and reg-

ulate their own behavior.

That difference between self- and organizational employment is

much less pronounced for workers who supervise other people.

Self-employed workers who take on subordinate staff have prob-

ably been successful when previously working for themselves

alone, and job issues that are particularly salient for them are likely

to concern subordinate performance and morale. Supervision when

self-employed brings with it multiple management demands that

reduce autonomy and well-being. Not only must self-employed

supervisors generate and sustain a personal income, they also have

to bring in a stream of extra funds to pay for their staff and they

must personally cope with problems of every kind. In dealing with

this greater overload, supervisors in self-employment have no

peer-level support or role models when, for instance, faced with

troubling “paradoxes” of leadership. Without guidelines or current

role models how can they, for instance, delegate control to subor-

dinates while simultaneously retaining their own control or grant

flexibility to individuals while also creating standard rules for

everyone (Zhang, Waldman, Han, & Li, 2015)?

In contrast, supervisors in an employing organization have es-

tablished routines and can draw upon guidance, support, and

feedback from other managerial colleagues. For self-employed

supervisors, the gains normally derived from supervisory discre-

tion are thus likely to be lessened by a substantial workload in

conjunction with a lack of colleague support. As a result, self-

employed supervisors’ job satisfaction and task autonomy are

expected more to approach the lower levels experienced by non-

supervisors. Patterns of that kind in the present study will be

described in the Results section.

In summary, jobs in self- and organizational employment con-

trast more sharply with each other for nonsupervisors than they do

for supervisors, and self-employed supervisors are subject to

additional overloading demands while lacking guidance and

support from colleagues. Hypothesis 2b thus predicts that the

significantly greater job satisfaction which is expected overall

in self-employment relative to organizational employment (Hy-

pothesis 2a) will be found in the subsample of nonsupervisors

but that this difference in job satisfaction will not occur in

separate comparisons between self-employed and organiza-

tional workers who supervise others.

Other hypotheses extend beyond job satisfaction to more wide-

ranging forms of happiness. In view of positive associations be-

tween job-related and more general hedonic well-being, the pre-

dictions of Hypothesis 2 might be extended to life beyond a job.

Hypothesis 3a proposes that hedonic well-being which is context-

free will be greater in the full sample of self-employed workers

than among those in organizational jobs, and Hypothesis 3b dis-

tinguishes between supervisors and nonsupervisors to expect that

greater context-free hedonic well-being in self-employment will

This expected nondifference for supervisory workers is consistent with

findings of significantly greater job satisfaction in entire samples of work-

ers because overall samples typically contain a very large majority of

nonsupervisors who dominate full-sample averages.

Correlations in the present research between job-specific and context-

free well-being ranged from .25 to .39.

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4WARR

again occur among workers who do not supervise others but will

not be found in separate analyses of those in supervisory positions.

Finally, the article examines different forms of personal flour-

ishing. As summarized earlier, current models of this construct

range across six principal elements— engagement in the world,

having purpose, autonomous self-regulation, competence, vitality,

and positive relations with others. Drawing on the distinction

introduced earlier between eudaimonic and noneudaimonic forms

of flourishing, significantly greater flourishing in self-employment

than in organizational employment is predicted in the three eudai-

monic elements (engagement in life, experienced purpose, and

autonomy), whereas no full-sample differences are expected in the

noneudaimonic forms: sense of competence, vitality, and positive

relations with others (Hypothesis 4a). The latter are particularly

influenced by health, demographic, and personality variables, so

that job content is unlikely to be a significant determinant on its

own. In parallel with expectations about hedonic well-being, Hy-

pothesis 4b predicts that eudaimonic forms of flourishing will be

greater in self-employment than in organizational jobs only for

workers without supervisory responsibility.

Method

The European Social Survey

Hypotheses 1 through 4 were investigated through information

gathered in the European Social Survey (ESS). This has been

conducted every 2 years across Europe since 2001, investigating a

wide range of issues in samples which are nationally representative

within each country. More than 30 countries have been involved in

the program, although not always in each round. The ESS has been

administered eight times, and complete interview schedules and

data from all countries involved are available for noncommercial

use at www.europeansocialsurvey.org. In each administration, in-

dividuals aged 15 and above are selected by random probability

sampling to yield a nationally representative sample, and inter-

views are conducted face-to-face, usually in a participant’s home.

The experience and drivers of self-employment can vary be-

tween countries and cultures, in part linked to different legal

frameworks, welfare provisions, and institutional and cultural

characteristics. To avoid confounders in those respects, the present

study focuses on data from a single country—the United Kingdom.

The ESS comprises “core” questions, which are repeated in

every round, and “rotating” modules, each of which occurs only in

certain rounds. (Items from the two sets are intermingled and

indistinguishable in use.) The core section mainly covers issues of

politics, mass media, and social trust but also asks about personal

values and near its end obtains demographic and occupational

information. The rotating module of particular interest here asks

about personal and social well-being (Huppert et al., 2009); this

was included for the first time in 2006 (ESS Round 3) and again

(with a few minor amendments) in 2012 (ESS Round 6). The

present hypotheses can thus be tested in Rounds 3 and 6 through

that module and elements of the core questionnaire. The ESS’s

interview schedule does not request information about job respon-

sibility in terms of managerial grade and function, but a single item

(examined here) asks in overall terms whether or not an inter-

viewee has “any responsibility for supervising the work of other

employees.”

Sample Characteristics

The present analyses are focused on interviewees who report

that they were in paid work in the last 7 days, excluding those who

are retired or not employed. The numbers of self-employed and

organizationally paid employees are shown in Table 1, covering a

total of 2,304 individuals. In comparison with those in organiza-

tional employment, self-employed workers were on average sig-

nificantly (p⬍.001) older: means of 47.16 versus 41.75 years in

Round 3 and 48.63 versus 43.13 years in Round 6. A significantly

higher proportion of self-employed interviewees were male (70% vs.

30% female in Round 3, and 67% vs. 33% in Round 6; p⬍.001 in

both cases), whereas proportions in organizational employment were

more similar to each other: 49% men and 51% women in Round 3 and

42% men and 58% women in Round 6 (both nonsignificant in each

round). The two groups had extremely similar profiles of highest

educational achievement, with self-employed workers holding

slightly fewer qualifications in Round 3 and slightly more in Round 6.

Although in full-sample analyses the self-employed and orga-

nizational groups worked a similar number of weekly hours

(means of 37 and 39 in Round 3 and 36 and 37 in Round 6),

self-employed individuals who supervised others worked substan-

tially longer than their employed counterparts (47 vs. 43 hours in

Round 3 and 45 vs. 41 in Round 6; p⬍.001 in both cases). For

workers without subordinates, the self-employed and organization-

ally paid groups did not differ in hours worked (35 vs. 34 and 32

vs. 33 hours in the two rounds; both nonsignificant).

Measuring Personal Values in the ESS

The ESS records context-free values through the Portrait Values

Questionnaire created by Schwartz (2001). This briefly describes

21 separate individuals and asks respondents in each case “how

much the person in the description is like you.” Six response

options (RO) are provided, ranging from very much like me to not

like me at all.

Table 1

Interviewees Classified by Survey Round, Type of Employment, and Supervisory Responsibility

Employment category

Round 3 Round 6

All Supervising Nonsupervising All Supervising Nonsupervising

Organizationally employed 1,098 508 590 879 364 515

Self-employed 157 50 107 170 55 115

Total 1,255 558 697 1,049 419 630

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SELF-EMPLOYMENT, VALUES, AND HAPPINESS

Table 2

Context-Free Values in Schwartz’s (1999) Framework: Organizational Versus Self-Employed Workers in the United Kingdom Rounds 3 and 6

Basic value

Round 3: Entire sample Round 6: Entire sample

Round 3: Sub-samples Round 6: Sub-samples

Supervising Nonsupervising Supervising Nonsupervising

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD

Self-direction

(independent thought,

action, creativity) 4.55 .90 4.85ⴱⴱⴱ .79 4.72 .85 4.94ⴱⴱ .88 4.62 .66 4.87ⴱⴱ .81 4.49 .93 4.83ⴱⴱⴱ .79 4.84 .83 4.93 .77 4.63 .86 4.94ⴱⴱⴱ .93

Stimulation (challenge,

excitement, and

novelty in life) 3.79 1.13 3.83ⴱ1.09 3.78 1.16 3.94ⴱ1.60 3.83 1.11 3.87 1.19 3.75 1.15 3.82ⴱ1.04 3.91 1.18 3.94 1.10 3.69 1.14 3.93ⴱ1.19

Power (social status,

prestige, authority) 3.26 1.01 3.20 .95 3.37 1.03 3.36 1.11 3.34 1.01 3.33 1.08 3.19 .90 3.14 .88 3.45 .97 3.56 1.13 3.32 1.07 3.27 1.09

Achievement (personal

success and

competence) 3.93 1.11 3.83 1.13 4.10 1.12 4.19 1.14 4.01 1.11 3.96 1.16 3.85 1.18 3.77 1.12 4.25 1.11 4.23 1.21 4.00 1.11 4.17 1.11

Hedonism (personal

pleasure and

gratification) 4.05 1.08 3.95 1.01 4.01 1.08 3.86 1.20 4.08 1.05 4.00 1.09 4.02 1.11 3.93 .98 4.06 1.12 3.73 1.40 3.97 1.10 3.92 1.23

Universalism (protecting

welfare of all and of

nature) 4.73 .77 4.83 .66 4.86 .71 4.84 .74 4.69 .77 4.84 .58 4.76 .78 4.83 .69 4.89 .70 4.73 .70 4.83 .71 4.89 .75

Benevolence (enhancing

welfare of personal

contacts) 4.92 .75 4.86 .71 5.16 .69 5.13 .75 4.91 .75 4.96 .77 4.92 .74 4.82 .68 5.17 .71 5.07 .70 5.15 .69 5.15 .78

Tradition (respect for

traditional

approaches) 3.96 1.02 4.18 .96 4.26 .98 4.21 1.03 3.89 .99 4.37ⴱ1.01 4.03 1.04 4.09 .92 4.26 .99 4.40 .96 4.25 .98 4.12 1.05

Conformity (not

violating social

expectations) 3.79 1.14 3.89 1.19 4.07 1.10 4.06 1.18 3.71 1.13 4.06 1.21 3.87 1.45 3.81 1.79 4.04 1.13 4.07 1.20 4.09 1.09 4.06 1.18

Security (safety, stability

of society, self, and

relationships) 4.52 .99 4.51 1.05 4.76 .93 4.71 1.02 4.41 1.01 4.50 .97 4.62ⴱ.96 4.38 1.08 4.71 .91 4.69 1.09 4.80 .94 4.71 .99

Note. Significance levels control for age, gender, and highest educational achievement. Significantly higher scores of a pair are presented in bold font.

ⴱ

p⬍.05.

ⴱⴱ

p⬍.01.

ⴱⴱⴱ

p⬍.001.

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6WARR

The questionnaire extends across the 10 basic values identified

in previous studies (e.g., Schwartz, 1999); they are listed in Table

2, together with some associated goals. For example, items repre-

senting the personal value of self-direction are “It is important to

him/her to make his or her own decisions about what he or she

does. He or she likes to be free and not depend on others” and

“Thinking up new ideas and being creative is important to him/her.

He or she likes to do things in an original way.” (Gender-

appropriate questionnaires are provided separately for male and

female interviewees.) For the value labeled as stimulation, items

are “He or she likes surprises and is always looking for new things

to do. He or she thinks it is important to do lots of things in life”

and “He or she looks for adventure and likes to take risks. He or

she wants to have an exciting life.”

Measuring Happiness in the ESS

Happiness items in the survey have been grouped here as

hedonic well-being, which is either job-specific or context-free,

and as different forms of flourishing; ESS flourishing questions are

all context-free. Almost all items are repeated in identical form

across Rounds 3 and 6, but a small number (indicated in the

following text) are present only once. The full interview and

scoring framework for both rounds are available on the ESS

website.

Response formats differ across the questions, from agree to

disagree, all to none, and satisfied to dissatisfied, as well as being

in terms of yes or no and a small number of options specifically

relating to a question’s content. The number of response alterna-

tives also varies between questions (from two to 10), and a few

items are constructed so that a high score indicates a low strength

of response. Those scores have here been reversed so that a higher

number always reflects a more positive response. For the derived

multi-item scales, option ranges are cited in the following text, and

for the few items included in only one of the rounds, the number

of response options (ROs) is shown in tables.

Hedonic well-being. Job-specific hedonic well-being is re-

corded in the ESS through conventional single items about overall

job satisfaction and satisfaction with the balance between job and

nonjob life. Fisher, Matthews, and Gibbons (2016) have evaluated

the reliability, validity, and research utility of many single-item

measures in organizational research, including the present question

about job satisfaction; this was placed in the authors’ most positive

category. Additionally, in Round 3 only workers were asked

whether they perceived their job as interesting and whether it was

stressful.

For context-free hedonic well-being, eight items are present in

both Rounds 3 and 6. Six of these cover feelings in the last week

(of happiness, enjoyment, calmness, anxiety, depression, and sad-

ness), and two ask about life in general (“How satisfied are you

with life as a whole?” and “How happy are you?”). These context-

free hedonic items have been widely used in other studies and their

wording points to good content validity.

After reverse-scoring the three past-week negative items, re-

sponses to the context-free hedonic questions were submitted

separately for each round to principal axis factoring with promax

rotation. In both rounds, the same two factors were found with

eigenvalues above 1.00, clearly separating the items about happi-

ness in the last week from those which are more extended across

time. Mean item-scores were computed as indicators of those two

factors, and alpha coefficients of internal reliability for happiness

in the last week and happiness in general were .83 and .84 in

Round 3 and .81 and .86 in Round 6. The scales were intercorre-

lated .50 and .52 in the two rounds.

Flourishing well-being. The ESS is unique among country-

representative investigations in its broad coverage of personal

flourishing. Responses to the flourishing questions that were asked

in both rounds were (separately for each round) submitted to

principal axis factoring with promax rotation, and yielded an

identical four-factor solution in the two samples. Replicated factor

allocations and suggested labels are as follows:

Factor A: Sense of accomplishment. ”I feel what I do in life

is valuable and worthwhile” (RO 1 through 5), “I feel accomplish-

ment from what I do” (RO 1 through 5), and “I am absorbed in

what I’m doing” (RO 1 through 4 in Round 3 and 0 through 10 in

Round 6); scale ␣s⫽.64 and .66 in Rounds 3 and 6, respectively.

Factor B: Sense of self-worth. “In general I feel very positive

about myself” (RO 1 through 5), “When things go wrong it takes

a long time to get back to normal” (RO 1 through 5, reverse-

scored), and “I am always optimistic about my future” (RO 1

through 5); scale ␣s⫽.66 and .67 in Rounds 3 and 6, respectively.

Factor C: Feelings of vitality. “In the past week I . . . had a lot

of energy,” “could not get going” (reverse-scored), and “felt ev-

erything I did was an effort (reverse-scored; RO 1 through 4 in all

cases); ␣s⫽.63 and .61.

Factor D: Positive social relations. “I feel people treat you

with respect” (RO 0 through 6), “I feel close to people in the local

area” (RO 1 through 5), and “I feel people in the local area help

one another” (RO 0 through 6); ␣s⫽.72 and .73.

Some of these flourishing items have been applied by other

researchers, but a number were specially devised for these rounds

of the survey. They extend across elements of flourishing de-

scribed in recent publications, and their validity is supported in

some cases by findings from those publications and also by the

presence of an identical factor structure in the two rounds of the

ESS.

It was suggested earlier that flourishing themes in this area

should be examined in two groups: flourishing that is eudaimonic

as viewed by Aristotle and other early writers or flourishing that is

noneudaimonic—additional elements suggested by psychologists.

In those terms, the present Factors A and B (labeled as sense of

accomplishment and self-worth) extend across themes that are

eudaimonic, whereas items tapping vitality and social relationships

(Factors C and D) are noneudaimonic. The single item covering

autonomous self-regulation (“I am free to decide how to lead my

life”) was found in both survey rounds to load evenly across the

four factors; on the basis of its freedom-oriented content, this item

is treated as an autonomous form of eudaimonic flourishing.

Job characteristics. The ESS contains only two questions

about the content of a job, both concerned with task autonomy

and both with ROs from 0 to 10: “To what extent are you

allowed to decide how daily work is organized?” and “To what

extent are you allowed to influence policy decisions about

activities of the organization?”. A two-item autonomy scale was

created, wherein alpha coefficients were .71 and .72 in Rounds

3 and 6, respectively.

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SELF-EMPLOYMENT, VALUES, AND HAPPINESS

Results

Hypothesis 1 concerns potential sources of self-employment in

terms of the 10 basic values in Schwartz’s (1999) model. These are

set out in Table 2, with illustrative descriptors after each one.

Comparisons between all organizationally employed and all self-

employed workers in each round are presented to the left of the

table, with separate analyses in subsequent columns for individuals

who either supervise or do not supervise other workers. Statistical

significance levels cited in all tables control for participants’ age,

gender, and highest educational achievement, and significantly

higher scores of a pair are presented in bold font.

As predicted in Hypothesis 1a, self-employed workers as a

whole in both rounds valued context-free self-direction to a sig-

nificantly greater degree than did those employed by an organiza-

tion. Also as predicted (Hypothesis 1b), the differences in eight

other values were not significant. However, a significant differ-

ence (albeit less so; i.e., p⬍.05) was also found and replicated

across rounds in context-free preferences for stimulation such that

self-employed individuals as a whole tended to more value novelty

and excitement in their lives.

Hypothesis 2a predicts that in full-sample analyses job satisfac-

tion will be greater in self-employment than in organizational

work. Consistent with that, the left-hand columns of Table 3 show

that in both rounds self-employed individuals as a whole had

significantly greater job satisfaction, and (when asked in Round 3

only) they found their job significantly more interesting than did

organizational employees.

Hypothesis 2b predicts that this greater job satisfaction in self-

employment will occur only in workers without supervisory re-

sponsibility, and that no difference will be found in separate

analyses of workers who supervise others. In support of this

expectation, Table 3 reports that significantly greater satisfaction

among self-employed workers occurred in both rounds for non-

supervisors. Also in support of the hypothesis, the table indicates

that satisfaction with the balance between job and nonjob was as

expected, with a significant full-sample advantage in self-

employment but only among workers without supervisory respon-

sibility. However, contrary to the hypothesis significantly greater

job satisfaction was also found in Round 3 for self-employed

workers who supervise others compared with organizational em-

ployees who also supervise others. In terms of replicated findings,

Hypothesis 2b is largely but not completely supported.

The earlier introduction to Hypothesis 2b suggested that super-

visors employed in organizations would be found to have greater

job satisfaction than nonsupervisors in organizations, but that in

self-employment additional demands on supervisors and their as-

sociated smaller gains from autonomy would reduce the difference

in job satisfaction to nonsignificance. This pattern was present in

both rounds of the survey. Among organizationally employed

supervisors, job satisfaction was significantly greater than that of

organizationally employed nonsupervisors (p⬍.05 in both cases;

combined-sample Ms⫽7.21 and 6.83), whereas for self-employed

workers that difference in job satisfaction between supervisors and

nonsupervisors was absent (combined-sample Ms⫽7.87 and

7.92). A similar pattern was found in both rounds for job auton-

omy: significantly more autonomy (p⬍.001) for organizationally

employed supervisors than for organizational nonsupervisors

(combined-sample Ms⫽6.62 and 4.88) but a nonsignificant

difference in autonomy between supervisors and nonsupervisors in

self-employment (combined-sample Ms⫽9.05 and 8.66).

Table 3 additionally includes findings for reported job stress. A

single question was asked only in Round 3, and because of

nonapplication in Round 6 formal predictions were not made.

However, as found in previous research cited above, no difference

in stress between self- and organizational employment was ob-

served in the full sample or in supervisory subgroups. Also in the

table is information of a kind not available elsewhere: self-

employed and organizational workers were found to have similar

household incomes and similar feelings about those incomes;

self-employed workers, both supervisory and nonsupervisory,

were significantly more likely to consider that they are paid

appropriately for what they do; and among nonsupervisors only,

satisfaction with standard of living was significantly greater in

self-employment than in organizational jobs.

Examining Hypothesis 3, findings about context-free hedonic

well-being are reported in Table 4, in terms of the two scales

introduced earlier and two additional hedonic items that were

included only in Round 3. These four indicators were moderately

correlated with job satisfaction (.25, .26, .32, and .39, sequenced as

in the table) so that self-employed workers (on average more

satisfied with their jobs) might be expected also to experience

greater context-free hedonic well-being than workers in organiza-

tions. However, that was infrequently the case. Table 4 shows that

only in Round 3 did a full-sample difference in context-free

hedonic well-being support Hypothesis 3a in two of the four

measures (p⬍.05). It must be concluded that, contrary to predic-

tion, the full-sample job-specific hedonic advantage of self-

employment is not consistently repeated in context-free aspects.

On that basis, Hypothesis 3b (requiring a full-group significant

divergence) is not open to empirical test.

Table 5 reports patterns of flourishing well-being. In addition to

the four factor scales described above, this table includes the item

about personal autonomy and six questions loading within a single

factor. Hypothesis 4a expects the full sample of self-employed

workers to report greater flourishing in the three eudaimonic

respects studied here—sense of accomplishment (Factor A), self-

worth (Factor B), and autonomous self-regulation (the single

item). Table 5 shows that scores on Factor A (sense of accom-

plishment) differed significantly between the full samples in both

rounds, with a greater sense of accomplishment in self-employment

than when working in an organization. Furthermore, as predicted by

Hypothesis 4b this difference occurred in both rounds only for work-

ers who did not supervise others. In addition, the table shows that, as

predicted, a difference was also found for the three eudaimonic Factor

A items included only in Round 6 —sense of direction and feelings of

interest and enthusiasm— both in full-sample comparisons (Hypoth-

esis 4a) and only for self-employed workers without supervisory

responsibility (Hypothesis 4b). However, contrary to Hypothesis 4a,

self-employed workers did not consistently have significantly higher

scores on the other two eudaimonic factors, the scale of self-worth and

the single item about autonomy.

In respect of the noneudaimonic factors of vitality and positive

social relations (Factors C and D), no differences were expected

between self-employed and organizational workers, and consistent

with that Table 5 shows that significant differences in vitality were

absent and that no consistent pattern occurred in social relations. In

addition, interviews in Round 6 obtained a rating of “your place in

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8WARR

Table 3

Job-Related Hedonic Well-Being and Feelings About Income: Organizational Versus Self-Employed Workers

Aspect of job-

related well-being

or current income

Round 3: Entire sample Round 6: Entire sample

Round 3: Subsamples Round 6: Subsamples

Supervising Nonsupervising Supervising Nonsupervising

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD

Feelings about one’s job

How satisfied with

job (RO 1–10) 6.84 2.42 7.78ⴱⴱⴱ 1.97 7.28 2.05 8.02ⴱⴱⴱ 2.06 6.99 2.35 8.08ⴱⴱ 1.71 6.71 2.49 7.65ⴱⴱⴱ 2.07 7.47 1.80 7.67 2.10 7.15 2.20 8.19ⴱⴱⴱ 2.00

How satisfied with

balance

between time

on job and time

on other

aspects (RO

1–10) 5.94 2.36 6.64ⴱⴱ 2.32 6.66 2.18 7.27ⴱ2.39 5.67 2.40 6.13 2.41 6.18 2.31 6.88ⴱⴱ 2.25 6.49 2.15 6.63 2.60 6.79 2.20 7.58ⴱⴱ 2.17

Find job

interesting, how

much of the

time (RO 1–6) 4.18 1.45 4.68ⴱⴱⴱ 1.16

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 4.37 1.31 4.83ⴱⴱ 1.06 4.01 1.54 4.61ⴱⴱⴱ 1.20

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Find job stressful,

how much of

the time (RO

1–6) 3.42 1.67 3.23 1.73

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 3.79 1.52 3.77 1.65 3.10 1.76 2.98 1.72

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Current income

Household’s net

total income all

sources (decile) 8.37 2.06 8.42 2.31 6.40 2.70 6.23 2.84 8.92 1.82 8.97 2.19 7.85 2.13 8.19 2.33 7.28 2.36 6.86 2.54 5.74 2.74 5.88 2.94

Feeling about

household’s

income

nowadays (RO

1–4) 3.30 .72 3.37 .72 3.13 .79 3.18 .77 3.36 1.64 3.40 1.60 3.26 .74 3.36 .69 3.30 .74 3.32 .81 3.02 .82 3.09 .75

Get paid

appropriately

considering

efforts and

achievements

(RO 1–5) 3.05 1.15 3.59ⴱⴱⴱ 1.04

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 3.05 1.16 3.54ⴱⴱ 1.10 3.04 1.15 3.61ⴱⴱⴱ 1.02

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Satisfied with

standard of

living (RO

0–10) 7.19 1.73 7.43 1.81

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 7.37 1.66 7.48 1.78 7.03 1.77 7.41ⴱ1.83

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Note. The range of response option (RO) scores is shown after each item. Significance levels control for age, gender, and highest educational achievement. Significantly higher scores of a pair are

presented in bold font.

ⴱ

p⬍.05.

ⴱⴱ

p⬍.01.

ⴱⴱⴱ

p⬍.001.

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SELF-EMPLOYMENT, VALUES, AND HAPPINESS

society,” and Table 5 shows that ratings by self-employed indi-

viduals as a whole were substantially higher than those of workers

in organizational jobs and that this significant difference was again

present only between individuals who do not supervise others.

Discussion

In a field underresearched by psychologists, this article con-

tributes in several ways. Basic values—potential guides to

action— of self-employed and organizational workers have

been compared for the first time through a model that has been

established on an international basis (Schwartz, 1999). A sig-

nificant difference between self-employed and organizational

workers was found in evaluations of personal independence and

(less strongly) in evaluations of novelty and challenge in one’s

life. However, as predicted, no differences were present in other

values in the model.

In respect of well-being, previous research has investigated

self-employed workers’ job satisfaction and aspects of strain but

has not addressed other important themes. This article confirms a

significant job-satisfaction advantage of self-employment over or-

ganizational employment but also reveals that this job-specific

difference does not extend to hedonic well-being with a more

general scope. The construct of flourishing well-being is intro-

duced to this area, and workers who are self-employed are found

to experience a stronger sense of accomplishment than do those

employed in an organization—feeling more valuable and worth-

while and being more absorbed in their activities.

Why should self-employed workers report greater hedonic sat-

isfaction than organizational workers in job-related terms but not

in hedonic well-being that is context-free? Other research has

pointed to the significant influence on self-employed job satisfac-

tion of increased decision freedom at work (Hytti et al., 2013;

Warr & Inceoglu, in press), but context-free happiness is a broad

composite state influenced by events and conditions in many life

settings and is therefore much less determined by degree of job

autonomy and other variables that are confined within an occupa-

tion.

However, if experiences in a job are unlikely to influence

hedonic well-being which has a broad context-free scope, why is

a significant difference present between self-employed and orga-

nizational workers in their context-free sense of accomplishment

(flourishing Factor A)? It seems likely that some overlap with

job-related well-being is responsible. As indicated earlier, job

satisfaction and feelings of accomplishment were significantly

intercorrelated (.46 and .40 in the two rounds), and it might be the

case that reports of accomplishment in life as a whole are espe-

cially influenced by experiences at work. Examining this possibil-

ity, comparisons of sense of accomplishment in self-employed and

organizational workers were again studied after controlling for

demographic variables as previously, but in addition now also

controlling for job satisfaction. After that job-related control, the

difference between Factor A scores in the two sets of workers was

in both rounds reduced to nonsignificance, suggesting that the

accomplishment aspect of context-free flourishing might be sub-

stantially attributed to experiences in a job.

A particularly important innovation is the article’s distinction

between workers who do and do not supervise others. In consid-

ering the nature of jobs with and without supervisory responsibil-

ity, it was hypothesized that greater well-being in self-employment

would be found only among nonsupervising workers. That expec-

tation was largely confirmed, implying that overall statements in

the scientific literature and popular press about the psychological

advantages and disadvantages of self-employment need to be

substantially qualified.

In methodological terms, the investigation also has uniquely

positive aspects. The studied sample was randomly drawn to be

representative of a nation rather than being restricted to a more

limited group of perhaps atypical self-employed workers; and

identical interview questions were asked of two separate samples

so that interpretations could derive from findings replicated be-

yond a single data set. Furthermore, detailed information about

samples, items, responses, and administration is publicly available

on the ESS’s website.

Limitations and Future Developments

The European Social Survey covers a wide range of societal and

political issues, and unsurprisingly it lacks detail about some

themes that might be important to psychologists’ research into

self-employment. For example, no information is gathered about

how long a person has occupied a current job, so that the possible

impact of learning and adaptation across time cannot be examined.

In future cross-sectional studies of self-employment, it is important

to ask about the length of a job-holder’s tenure and the nature of

his or her previous and current work. In addition, longitudinal

studies are particularly required. For instance, self-employed

workers have been shown here to differ from organizational work-

ers in a stronger preference for self-direction in their lives, but we

have yet to learn whether valued personal independence predicts a

transition from organizational into self-employment.

A linked requirement is for research into “necessity” versus

“opportunity” self-employment (e.g., Carr, 1996; Smeaton, 2003).

Did a person become self-employed primarily because that move

was considered necessary in the absence of other available work,

or was the transition more a matter of motivated personal choice in

seeking new opportunities? Workers who are now self-employed

but were previously unemployed appear particularly likely to have

made the move because they needed to gain an income (i.e.,

necessity self-employment), and information about personal and

contextual factors linked to one or the other option is important for

the development of theory in this area. However, neither the ESS

nor any other published large-scale data-source in this area pro-

vides relevant information, and this should now be obtained. For

example, personal values such as self-direction and stimulation

might be held more strongly by opportunity than by necessity

self-employed workers.

It is also essential to build on the measures applied here.

Flourishing aspects of happiness were included in the 2006 ESS

for the first time, and some items now require adjustment, for

The statistical procedure applied by those authors was used to examine

the contribution of task autonomy to job satisfaction in this study, and

regression findings were in both rounds identical to those reported previ-

ously.

This possibility was suggested by an anonymous reviewer.

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10 WARR

instance to examine more systematically the six aspects of flour-

ishing identified here. The flourishing scales’ median alpha coef-

ficient was only .66, and it would be appropriate to modify or add

questions. A wider range of validation evidence would also be

desirable, with particular attention paid to consistency between the

conceptualization and operationalization of each construct. For

example, questions in the ESS about the social-relations aspect of

flourishing emphasize harmony with and between other people but

do not directly explore a person’s own social involvement. Future

investigations of interpersonal flourishing could benefit from treat-

ing that more in terms of between-person interaction than is the

case here.

Research should also examine the elements of flourishing in

specific domains (e.g., within one’s job) as well as in an overall

life-space. The previous section pointed to the possibility that

accomplishment felt in life as a whole derives in large part from

job-related themes, and future studies should examine whether the

forms of context-free flourishing that most differ between self-

employed and organizational workers are those that most strongly

correlate with hedonic well-being in a job.

Importantly, this article shows that happiness comparisons be-

tween self-employed and employed workers depend on whether or

not a worker has responsibility for other people. The single-item

indicator of supervisory responsibility in the ESS now requires

amendment to obtain details about a person’s supervisory role. For

instance, at present a junior-level team leader and a principal

director in a multinational corporation must both be placed in the

same ESS category of “supervisor” despite the fact that their

activities and responsibilities are very different. Future research

should obtain more detailed information about supervisory role

and level.

The ESS’s website contains responses from other nations’

application of the interview questions described here, so that

equivalent analyses are, in principle, possible in other countries.

However, between-country comparisons need to be based on

identified conditions in those countries which can underpin

hypotheses about divergence or similarity. Legal, economic,

and demographic influences on self-employment can differ

substantially between countries, so it is essential first to identify

the cultural features which may be predicted to yield specific

patterns of findings.

In practical terms, official recommendations about starting up in

a self-employed role tend to focus on a person’s technical expertise

and experience, emphasizing a “one size fits all” approach that

encourages people to become self-employed without consideration

of their psychological make-up. However, the present findings

have suggested that this undifferentiated approach needs to be

refined to distinguish in psychological terms between individuals.

People with a stronger preference for self-direction have been

shown here to be more likely than others to be self-employed, and

research in the U.S. Army has found that particular value preferences

Table 4

Context-Free Hedonic Well-Being: Organizational Versus Self-Employed Workers

Aspect of context-

free hedonic well-

being

Round 3: Entire sample Round 6: Entire sample

Round 3: Sub-samples Round 6: Sub-samples

Supervising others Nonsupervising Supervising others Nonsupervising

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD

Multi-item scales

Long-term happiness

(RO 0–10) 7.36 1.63 7.63ⴱ1.58 7.39 1.70 7.47 1.75 7.47 1.58 7.60 1.67 7.26 1.66 7.64ⴱ1.54 7.52 1.63 7.27 1.54 7.29 1.75 7.57 1.85

Last-week happiness

(RO 1–4) 3.18 .50 3.22 .49 3.23 .50 3.22 .57 3.20 .50 3.18 .57 3.16 .51 3.23 .47 3.26 .48 3.16 .54 3.21 .51 3.24 .58

Additional questions asked in Round 3 only

Satisfied with how

life has turned

out so far (RO

0–10) 7.33 1.68 7.57ⴱ1.66

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 7.44 1.63 7.88ⴱ1.32 7.23 1.72 7.43 1.79

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

On the whole life is

close to how I

would like it to

be (RO 1–5) 3.50 .92 3.52 .87

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 3.59 .90 3.64 .83 3.43 .94 3.46 .88

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Note. The range of response-option scores is shown as (RO) after each additional item. Significance levels control for age, gender, and highest educational achievement. Significantly higher scores

of a pair are presented in bold font.

ⴱ

p⬍.05.

Correlations between job satisfaction and the present flourishing fac-

tors were in the two rounds .46 and .40 (accomplishment), .24 and .23

(self-worth), .25 and.23 (vitality), and .23 and .14 (social relations). Only

the factor most correlated with job satisfaction (accomplishment) was

found to differ between self- and organizational employment.

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This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

SELF-EMPLOYMENT, VALUES, AND HAPPINESS

Table 5

Context-Free Flourishing Well-Being: Organizational Versus Self-Employed Workers

Aspect of flourishing

Round 3: Entire sample Round 6: Entire sample

Round 3: Subsamples Round 6: Subsamples

Supervising Nonsupervising Supervising Nonsupervising

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

Organizational

workers

Self-employed

workers

M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD

Multi-item scales

Factor A: Sense of

accomplishment 3.43 .57 3.62

ⴱⴱⴱ

.54 4.94 .81 5.21

ⴱⴱⴱ

.80 3.55 .54 3.68 .65 3.34 .59 3.60

ⴱⴱⴱ

.49 5.05 .77 5.11 .65 4.88 .83 5.26

ⴱⴱⴱ

.86

Factor B: Sense of self-

worth 3.64 .67 3.74 .63 3.70 .65 3.84

ⴱ

.64 3.72 .66 3.75 .64 3.56 .67 3.73 .64 3.77 .66 3.90 .65 3.66 .64 3.81 .63

Factor C: Feelings of

vitality 3.12 .54 3.14 .55 3.82 .54 3.84 .65 3.16 .53 3.11 .66 3.08 .54 3.15 .50 3.85 .55 3.76 .62 3.80 .53 3.87 .66

Factor D: Positive social

relations 3.40 .95 3.61 .98 3.72 .91 3.94

ⴱ

.88 3.41 .94 3.71

ⴱ

.89 3.39 .97 3.57 1.01 3.70 .89 3.72 .85 3.72 .92 4.04

ⴱⴱ

.88

Cross-loading autonomy item

Autonomous self-regulation:

Free to decide how to

live my life (RO

1–5R) 3.96 .87 4.04 .84 4.10 .79 4.21 .84 3.99 .88 4.08 .75 3.94 .87 4.03 .87 4.05 .84 4.09 .87 4.13 .75 4.27 .82

Additional questions asked in Round 3 only

Factor C: Vitality

Felt tired, how often past

week (RO 1–4) 2.14 .69 2.03 .57

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 2.14 .68 2.02 .69 2.14 .70 2.04 .57

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Factor D: Positive social

relations

Feel you get the

recognition you

deserve for what you

do (RO 0–6) 3.70 1.28 4.12

ⴱⴱⴱ

1.31

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 3.77 1.30 4.14

ⴱⴱⴱ

1.41 3.63 1.25 4.11

ⴱⴱⴱ

1.16

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Additional questions asked in Round 6 only

Factor A: Sense of

accomplishment

Have a sense of direction

in your life (RO 0–10)

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 6.88 1.62 7.41

ⴱⴱⴱ

1.80

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 7.19 1.72 7.60 1.56 6.67 1.85 7.31

ⴱⴱⴱ

1.91

Interested in what doing,

how much of time

(RO 0–10)

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 7.36 1.55 7.71

ⴱ

1.52

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 7.56 1.42 7.51 1.41 7.21 1.62 7.81

ⴱⴱ

1.56

Enthusiastic about what

doing, how much time

(RO 0–10)

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 7.14 1.61 7.42

ⴱ

1.66

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 7.28 1.50 6.95 1.86 7.04 1.68 7.65

ⴱⴱ

1.52

Factor D: Positive social

relations

Your place in society

(RO 0–10)

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 5.51 1.50 6.01

ⴱⴱⴱ

1.34

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked

Not

asked 5.71 1.45 6.02 1.25 5.37 1.51 6.00

ⴱⴱⴱ

1.38

Note. The range of response option (RO) scores is shown after each additional item. Significance levels control for age, gender, and highest educational achievement. Significantly higher scores of

a pair are presented in bold font.

ⴱ

p⬍.05.

ⴱⴱ

p⬍.01.

ⴱⴱⴱ

p⬍.001.

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This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

12 WARR

are related to better job performance (Van Iddekinge, Putka, & Camp-

bell, 2011). Vocational guidance should therefore bring into discus-

sion the importance of a person’s values and more widely consider the

types and levels of psychosocial benefit and harm that particular

individuals can expect from self-employment. Discussion-based guid-

ance and the provision of associated advice about personal values and

linked characteristics could help prevent the substantial individual and

family distress that can follow an unwise career decision.

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Received February 24, 2016

Revision received June 8, 2017

Accepted June 12, 2017 䡲

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

14 WARR

How Does Supervisory Responsibility Impact The Basic Psychological Needs & Well-being of Self-employed Workers In Ireland? A Moderated-Moderation Perspective

Preprint

Full-text available

Jun 2022

Larry Maguire

The present quantitative study examined, for self-employed workers in Ireland for the first time, the moderating effect of supervisory responsibility on the relationship between the fulfilment of basic psychological needs and well-being and how this effect may be conditioned by (1) perceived social support and (2) time spent in self-employment. The study employed a descriptive research method using cross-sectional, non-probability purposive sampling with a self-report questionnaire means of data collection. Sample (N = 53) were restricted to current or previously self-employed people with or without staff and weresourced within the island of Ireland. Statistical analysis was conducted using PROCESS macro for SPSS v4.1. For self-employed workers, results showed that (a) fulfilment of basic psychological needs is a significant predictor of well-being. (b) Supervisory responsibility has a significant moderating effect on the basic psychological needs/well-being relationship. (c) As supervisory responsibility increases, the effect of basic psychological needs fulfilment on well-being decreases. (d) Perceived social support has a moderated moderation effect on supervisory responsibility but has diminishing returns for well-being as supervisory responsibility increases. (e) Time in self-employment has a moderated moderation effect on supervisory responsibility but also has diminishing returns for well-being as supervisory responsibility increases. Results support existing but scarce research on supervisory responsibility as an extrinsic demand on the well-being of self-employed workers. Findings highlight the essential need for self-employed workers to focus on growth and developmentof self in addition to that of the business.

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The aim of this study was to review the literature on what constitutes happiness across cultures and countries to advance scholarly knowledge on the happiness construct. A systematic review was conducted to examine the determinants of happiness in samples across cultures and countries. Five different databases, including APA PsycNet, EBSCO-Academic, EBSCO-Business, Project MUSE, and Google Scholar, grey literature, and in-text references from relevant review articles were used. A total of 155 articles were included in the review, encompassing studies from over 100 countries and 44 cultures. Myriad determinants of happiness were found that were placed into three broad categories labeled Health, Hope, and Harmony. The predominant happiness determinants were mental, emotional, and physical well-being, a purposeful holistic work–life balance, nurturing social relationships, caring for self and others, and being in harmony with one’s culture, traditions, community, religion, and environment. This study engendered an “Integrated Model of the Determinants of Happiness” to provide a universally applicable conceptualization of the happiness construct. By examining studies on determinants of happiness across the globe in the past 90 years, this review uncovered that happiness constitutes multiple determinants that fall under three major categories: ‘Health’, ‘Hope’, and ‘Harmony.’

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The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the arts sector, disrupting livelihoods and professional networks and accentuating the instability that is common for creative workers. Gaps in support for grassroots organisations and freelance workers have highlighted structural inequalities within the industry, and the significant challenges for individual workers in the early stages of their career. Yet, the pandemic has also emphasised the importance of the arts as a community resource and its role in supporting wellbeing and togetherness. This qualitative study explored the experiences of the pandemic for early career arts workers, focusing on its impacts upon their livelihoods and how it has shaped their future career directions. Sixteen arts and cultural workers across a variety of sectors including theatre, film, circus, music, and literature participated in solo, semi-structured interviews during April–June 2021. Thematic analysis identified three overarching themes: (i) ‘Pandemic precarity and creative practice’, (ii) ‘PostCOVID I: Inclusivity and diversifying audiences’, and (iii) ‘PostCOVID II: Adapting, developing, and disrupting cultural practices’. Overall, the experiences capture an early career workforce that, while committed and engaged with their creative practice, also seeks a more equitable, fairer, and diverse industry that protects artists and engages more flexibly with broader audiences.

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The spontaneous pro-environmental behavior (PEB) of rural residents is essential for rural environmental governance. Existing studies have primarily focused on the impact of objective factors on individual PEB, while less attention has been paid to the role of subjective factors, such as rural residents’ subjective well-being, in shaping such behaviors. Based on the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) data, this study evaluates the impact of subjective well-being on the PEB of rural residents. The results show that subjective well-being significantly promoted the PEB in both the private sphere with reciprocity and the public sphere with altruistic attributes. Subjective well-being affected PEB mainly by enhancing rural residents’ social interaction and reciprocity with others and raising their fraternity and altruism. Moreover, the positive effect was mainly driven by women and individuals with more environmental knowledge. Therefore, enhancing rural residents’ subjective well-being is not only an important development goal, but also the starting point and foothold of solving the contradiction between economic development and environmental protection and promoting social harmony.

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Despite the increasing interest in studying the concept of resilience in entrepreneurship, existing research often fails to account for stressors that induce entrepreneurs' need for resilience and coping efforts. By arguing the need to study stress, resilience, and coping together to understand how entrepreneurs build resilience in the face of adversities, we systematically review the en-trepreneurship scholarship (125 articles) on these three concepts. By critically appraising these three literatures in light of current thinking in psychology, we then develop a model of the process of building psychological resilience in entrepreneurship and offer a clear pathway for future research.

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This study investigated the effect of perceived entrepreneurial stress on entrepreneurial resilience with the well-being of an individual entrepreneur in mediating role and perceived online social support moderating this relationship. Using survey data collected from 204 entrepreneurs in two major towns in Kenya, considered entrepreneurial hubs were analyzed. To uncover this relationship, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the discriminant validity of the measurement model. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to test four hypotheses in seven models to estimate direct, indirect and interaction effects. The results showed that perceived entrepreneurial stress and the well-being of individual entrepreneurs are significantly negatively related; this study also found out that the well-being of individual entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial resilience are positively related. For moderation effect, perceived online social support positively moderated the relationship between the well-being of individual entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial resilience. Finally, to test the indirect effect, bootstrapping analysis was used to identify mediation effects. The bootstrapping indirect test results revealed that the well-being of individual entrepreneurs mediates the relationship between perceived entrepreneurial stress and entrepreneurial resilience. This study outlines online communities as an avenue where entrepreneurs can access online social support that can facilitate entrepreneurial resilience during crises and to foster resilience among entrepreneurs despite adversity, entrepreneurs need to consider making a culture of seeking and providing social support online to fellow entrepreneurs and online communities.

Work Orientations, Well-Being and Job Content of Self-Employed and Employed Professionals

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Drawing on psychology-derived theories and methods, a questionnaire survey compared principal kinds of work orientation, job content and mental well-being between self-employed and organisationally employed professional workers. Self-employment was found to be particularly associated with energised well-being in the form of job engagement. The presence in self-employment of greater challenge, such as an enhanced requirement for personal innovation, accounted statistically for self-employed professionals’ greater job engagement, and self-employed professionals more strongly valued personal challenge than did professionals employed in an organisation. However, no between-role differences occurred in respect of supportive job features such as having a comfortable workplace. Differences in well-being, job content and work orientations were found primarily in comparison between self-employees and organisational non-managers. The study emphasises the need to distinguish conceptually and empirically between different forms of work orientation, job content and well-being, and points to the value of incorporating psychological thinking in some sociological research.

A proposal for measuring value orientations across nations

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Shalom H Schwartz

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Jerome A. Katz

Researchers from diverse disciplines have come to the conclusion that the self-employed should be more satisfied than the wage-or-salarled, but the samples used In these studies are largely Inadequate for generalizations. Studies using representative samples have disagreed on this important point. Naughton's (1987a & b) results generally supported the higher job satisfaction of the self-employed, but these findings were at odds with the implications of a similar representative sample study by Eden (1975). The idea of secondary analysis In replication research is introduced and applied to entrepreneurship research. The process and problems encountered In replicating the two studies, and the decisions made to resolve conflicts between the studies are discussed as examples of the problems secondary analysts face. Explanations for the divergent findings and implications for fostering secondary analysis approaches in entrepreneurship are discussed.

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Drawing upon the Job Demand-Control (JDC) model, this study investigates differences in work-related stress between the self-employed and wage workers. The JDC model postulates that job demand increases work-related stress, whereas job control reduces it (also by weakening the effect of job demand on work-related stress). Based on this model, we predict that the self-employed experience less work-related stress than wage workers. Empirical analysis of a longitudinal sample from Australia (2005–2013) confirms our expectations and demonstrates that job control fully mediates the negative relationship between self-employment and work-related stress. Further analyses show that self-employed individuals with employees experience more work-related stress than those without employees because of higher job demand.

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J PERS SOC PSYCHOL

C.D. Ryff

Household Employment in the United States

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Frieda S. Miller

Stress, Strain, and Their Moderators: An Empirical Comparison of Entrepreneurs and Managers

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A. Rahim

This study tested three main effects: (1) the effect of job stressors (role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload, and role insufficiency) on strain (depression, anxiety, cognitive disturbance, and anger); (2) the effects of locus of control and social support on job stress and strain; and (3) the moderating (interaction) effects of locus of control and social support on the relationship between stress and strain. These relationships were tested with questionnaire data from two random samples of 238 entrepreneurs and 288 managers. Results from a multivariate analysis of variance showed that the entrepreneurs and managers differed significantly on stress, locus of control, and social support. Results from hierarchical regression analyses, after controlling for the demographic variables, found support for all ten main effects and one of the four moderating effects.

Work, Happiness and Unhappiness

Article

Jan 2011

Peter Warr

Award-winning psychologist Peter Warr explores why some people at work are happier or unhappier than others. He evaluates different approaches to the definition and assessment of happiness, and combines environmental and person-based themes to explain differences in people’s experience. A framework of key job characteristics is linked to an account of primary mental processes, and those are set within a summary of demographic, cultural, and occupational patterns. Consequences of happiness or unhappiness for individuals and groups are also reviewed, as is recent literature on unemployment and retirement. Although primarily focusing on job situations, the book shows that processes of happiness are similar across settings of all kinds. It provides a uniquely comprehensive assessment of research published across the world.

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