Villanova School of Business, Villanova University, 800 E. Lancaster Ave., Villanova, PA 19085, USA.
E.J. Ourso College of Business, Louisiana State University, 501 S. Quad Dr. - Rm. 2200, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA.
J Affect Disord. 2020 Mar 15;265:175-184. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.01.067. Epub 2020 Jan 16.
Self-employment has become an increasingly popular occupational choice, and there are substantial mental health and well-being benefits that can accrue for individuals who remain active and engaged later in life. In this study, we examine the association between reduced depression symptoms and self-employment in aging workers.
Drawing from The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) data, our study examines a longitudinal sample of 35,717 individuals aged 50 years or older.
Our results indicate that self-employment is negatively associated with depression among aging workers. Additionally, we find that this relationship weakens as aging self-employed individuals grow older, and that gender moderates this relationship such that older female self-employed individuals report lower depression symptoms than their male counterparts.
Our sample is limited to European workers aged 50 years and older, and as such might have limited generalizability to younger self-employed individuals from other geographic regions. Moreover, although we control for factors that could play a role in the association between depression symptoms and self-employment (e.g. quality of life, personality traits, etc.), additional research will be needed in order to determine the potential mediating and moderating roles such factors might have on this relationship.
The results we present demonstrate the important and nuanced nature between self-employment and depression symptoms in aging workers. These findings call to light the need to continue to foster and develop systems and programs that help to facilitate self-employment for individuals as they transition into older ages.
自雇已成为越来越受欢迎的职业选择，对于那些在晚年保持活跃和参与的人来说，自雇会带来大量的心理健康和幸福感。在这项研究中，我们研究了减少抑郁症状与老年工人自雇之间的关联。
本研究利用欧洲健康、老龄化和退休调查（SHARE）的数据，考察了一个由 35717 名年龄在 50 岁及以上的个体组成的纵向样本。
我们的结果表明，自雇与老年工人的抑郁症状呈负相关。此外，我们发现，随着年龄较大的自雇人士年龄的增长，这种关系会减弱，而性别会调节这种关系，使得年龄较大的女性自雇人士报告的抑郁症状比男性自雇人士低。
我们的样本仅限于年龄在 50 岁及以上的欧洲工人，因此可能对来自其他地理区域的年轻自雇人士的普遍性有限。此外，尽管我们控制了可能在抑郁症状和自雇之间的关联中起作用的因素（例如生活质量、人格特质等），但需要进一步的研究来确定这些因素在这种关系中可能具有的潜在中介和调节作用。
我们提出的结果展示了自雇与老年工人抑郁症状之间的重要和微妙关系。这些发现提醒人们需要继续培养和发展系统和计划，帮助个人在过渡到老年时实现自雇。
