Self-Employment Matching: An Analysis of Dual Earner Couples and Working Households

This paper explores the significance of intra-couple and intra-household influences on self-employment. It may be the case that employment type matching is prevalent whereby individuals within a couple or household are characterised by similar types of employment. Alternatively, an individual may pool income risk with his/her partner by holding a diversified portfolio of employment types within the household thereby introducing an element of intra-household risk pooling. Such an arrangement may be particularly appropriate if one member of the couple is self-employed. We utilise ordered probit and random effects ordered probit analysis to explore the prevalence of employment matching and/or risk pooling within couples or households. Our empirical analysis which is based on cross-section data drawn from the British Family Expenditure Surveys 1996 to 2000 provides evidence of employment type matching both within dual earner couples and, to a lesser extent, in the wider context of working household members.