Self-employed contractors and job satisfaction

Abstract

Many studies have found that the self-employed are more satisfied with their jobs than are wage and salary earners. In this article, it is argued that due to the diversity of working arrangements among the self-employed, job satisfaction may vary across sub-groups within this category. Using data collected from a random sample of Australian workers, this article provides a partial test of this hypothesis. In particular, it focuses on job satisfaction of self-employed contractors. While, in aggregate, self-employed contractors are not found to be significantly more satisfied with their jobs than wage and salary earners, more disaggregated analysis indicates that this finding hinges on the deg..