Workers on the Border Between Employment and Self-Employment

ICER Working Paper No. 11/2006

22 Pages Posted: 24 Sep 2006

See all articles by Ulrike Muehlberger

Ulrike Muehlberger

Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration; International Centre for Economic Research (ICER)

Silvia Pasqua

University of Turin - Department of Economics

Date Written: 2006

Abstract

The number of workers on the border between self-employment and employment strongly increased across Europe over the last decade. This paper investigates whether and in what respect these workers differ from employees and self-employed and analyses whether these work relationships are a stepping stone to more stable employment in the short-run using Italian data. Depending on the data source the para-subordinates represent between 1.8% and 5.3% of the Italian labour force. Since most of them work only for one company and are strongly integrated into the firm of the contract partner, we argue that labour and social security law discriminates against these workers who are in fact very close to employees. We find that they are not low qualified workers, but young, highly educated professionals. At the same time these contracts are not a port of entry into the labour market nor do we find that they are a vehicle to more stable jobs. However, they are a possibility for women to work part-time.

Keywords: Self-employment, Dependency, Outsourcing

JEL Classification: K31, J21, L22

Suggested Citation

Muehlberger, Ulrike and Pasqua, Silvia, Workers on the Border Between Employment and Self-Employment (2006). ICER Working Paper No. 11/2006, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=932060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.932060

Ulrike Muehlberger (Contact Author)

Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration ( email )

Welthandelsplatz 1
Vienna, Wien 1020
Austria

International Centre for Economic Research (ICER)

Villa Gualino
Viale Settimio Severo, 63
10133 Torino
Italy

Silvia Pasqua

University of Turin - Department of Economics ( email )

Via Po, 53
Torino, 10124
Italy

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