Happiness and Health: well-being among self- employed

During the last years researchers have shown an increasing interest in differences between the selfemployed and employees regarding how they feel about work. A persistent result is that self-employed are more satisfied with their jobs than wage-earners are. This paper extends the comparison between the well-being of self-employed and wage-earners to also incorporate mental health problems, physical health, life-satisfaction and feelings about whether the job is stressful and mentally straining. The data used is a survey consisting of about 2 000 individuals who have been interviewed about their living and working conditions in 1991 and in 2000. The preliminary analysis indicates that well-being is higher among the self-employed. The main conclusion is that those who are self-employed in 2000 are more satisfied with their jobs and are less likely to feel that the job is mentally straining than employees are in 2000. A clear difference between the groups is not found in 1991. Well-being in general is lower in 2000 than in 1991, a result which is in line with the changes on the labour market during the 1990s. Findings presented in this paper suggest that those who become self-employed are less likely to experience a drop in well-being between 1991 and 2000 compared to employees. This is a novel finding which deserves more attention. It is important to understand what facets of self-employment that protect the self-employed from experiencing this drop in well-being. Such knowledge can then be used to improve health and happiness among the workforce in general. JEL classification: J23, J28, I19, J81