van Loon Leanne, Hessels Jolanda, Rietveld Cornelius A, van der Zwan Peter
Department of Applied Economics, Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Erasmus University Rotterdam Institute for Behavior and Biology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2020 Jul 23;11:1118. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01118. eCollection 2020.
The survival of businesses in the market often hinges on contributions of the business owner's household members. Partners of the self-employed as well as their children may, for example, provide emotional support but also cheap and flexible labor. Although the household composition of self-employed individuals has been analyzed in many earlier studies, little is known about what happens to the self-employed individual and his or her business when one separates from a life partner. We argue that separation from a life partner has profound financial and social consequences for the business owner. Specifically, we propose that a decrease in household income and social functioning (which is the degree of interference with social activities due to mental and/or physical problems) after separation from the life partner may lead to an exit from self-employment. Our empirical analysis draws on data from the longitudinal HILDA (Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia) survey, for the period 2002-2017. Based on information from 4,044 self-employed individuals aged 18-64 years (18,053 individual-year observations), we find that separating from the life partner in the past year significantly increases the probability of exit from self-employment in the next year. Furthermore, we find that the positive association between separation from the life partner and exit from self-employment can be explained for 29.7% by a reduction in social functioning and for 10.7% by a reduction in household income. We study five exit routes out of self-employment and find that separation from the life partner mainly increases the probabilities of becoming a wage worker and of re-entering self-employment after experiencing an exit. For exit to unemployment or to a position outside the labor force (voluntarily inactive/retirement or any other non-labor force position), we find insignificant relationships with separation from the life partner. Furthermore, for all exit routes except retirement, we find significant indirect effects implying that decreased household income and levels of social functioning are important mechanisms through which separation from the life partner is related to exit from self-employment.
企业在市场中的生存往往取决于企业主家庭成员的贡献。例如，个体经营者的配偶及其子女不仅可以提供情感支持，还能提供廉价且灵活的劳动力。尽管在许多早期研究中已经分析了个体经营者的家庭构成，但对于个体经营者与其生活伴侣分居后，个体经营者及其企业会发生什么却知之甚少。我们认为，与生活伴侣分居会给企业主带来深远的经济和社会后果。具体而言，我们提出，与生活伴侣分居后家庭收入和社会功能的下降（即由于精神和/或身体问题对社会活动的干扰程度）可能导致个体经营者退出自营职业。我们的实证分析采用了2002 - 2017年澳大利亚纵向家庭、收入与劳动力动态调查（HILDA）的数据。基于4044名年龄在18 - 64岁的个体经营者的信息（18053个个体年度观测值），我们发现，在过去一年中与生活伴侣分居会显著增加下一年退出自营职业的概率。此外，我们发现，与生活伴侣分居和退出自营职业之间的正相关关系中，29.7%可由社会功能的下降来解释，10.7%可由家庭收入的减少来解释。我们研究了自营职业的五条退出途径，发现与生活伴侣分居主要增加了成为工薪劳动者以及在经历一次退出后重新进入自营职业的概率。对于退出后进入失业或劳动力市场之外的职位（自愿不活跃/退休或任何其他非劳动力市场职位），我们发现与与生活伴侣分居之间没有显著关系。此外，对于除退休外的所有退出途径，我们发现了显著的间接影响，这意味着家庭收入和社会功能水平的下降是与生活伴侣分居与退出自营职业相关的重要机制。
