• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.65 no.1
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• pp.147-174
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• 2013

Until recently, self-employment workers are often excluded from labor market studies. Most relevant studies has focused on the determinants of entry into self-employment. However, the self-employment is highly exposed to poverty risk although they are working. Despite that, relatively little is known about the economic severity of the self-employed. This study uses data from the Korea Welfare Panel Study to examine the situation of the self-employed's in-work poverty and the determinants of in-work poverty among them. Major findings are as follows. First, self-employed people experience 3.5 times higher in-work poverty risk than employees. Especially, the ratio of own-account self-employed people living below the poverty line is similar with that of even precarious employees. Second, the extent of poverty of self-employment is more serious. Third, the proportion of self-employed among working poor is about 53% although self-employed workers are composed of only about 24% among working people. Fourth, temporary employees and self-employed people are more likely to be poor than full time employees according to logistic regression. It is statistically significant. It implies that it is desirable to regard the self-employed as the policy target group along with temporary employees. Fifth, the ratio of in-work poverty of self-employed aged 40-64 whose education level is low and the self-employed aged 40-64 who work in low-skilled service sector are higher than that of the other group. It implies that measures to alleviate their economic difficulties are urgently needed.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.135-164
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• 2010

This paper compares the earnings effect of inter-industry technology differences between the self-employed and wage earners. It is assumed that primary skills utilized by the self-employed and paid workers differ in nature, and thus the earnings effect of technology differences and its skill-biasness also differ for each type of workers. For the empirical analysis. Heckman's two-stage method and quantile regressions are fitted to Korean panel data. The earnings effect of technology differences turns skill- biased for wage earners (job-specific skills), but prevails for all self-employed workers (entrepreneurial skills) regardless of their schooling level. This sectoral difference holds for each different quantile of earnings distribution.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.49-77
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• 2016

The aim of this study is to reveal errors in the estimations on the nonstandard workers scale which have resulted from little consideration for bogus self-employment. Bogus self-employment means disguised employment relationships that are considered to be self-employed workers even though they have inherent subordination. The methods of previous studies estimate that the bogus self-employed workers are excluded from estimations because they are not workers in principle. We analyze the scale of the bogus self-employments using the empirical data [the Korean Welfare Panel of 2008-2013(six wave panel)] to re-estimate the scale of non-standard workers. In 2013, the year of the last wave, the percentage of the bogus self-employment was high, the proportion of them is 28.5% among self-employment without owning a place of business. Our results expect the number of contract workers from re-analysis would be over 740 thousand when reflecting on the predictive value in the actual number of paid workers. In conclusion, it is necessary to apply reasonable methods of analysis concerning the scope and scale of the nonstandard workers for the sake of coping with measures against the problem of nonstandard workers. The aim of this study is to reveal the estimation error on nonstandard workers' scale which are resulted from having no consideration for bogus self-employment. Bogus self-employment means disguised employment relationship that is considered as self-employment workers even though they have inherent subordination. The methods of previous researches' estimation on nonstandard workers have the problem that the bogus self-employment workers are excluded from estimation because they are not workers in principle.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.1-36
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• 2013

This study examines how the unobserved heterogeneity of workers, measured by residuals of the wage equation, affects the entry into self-employment using KLIPS 1998-2008. Following Joona and Wadensjo(2013), we treat the residuals as unobserved ability and find that both workers with higher and lower ability are more likely to become self-employed. However, this U-Shape relationship no longer holds when the sample is divided into males and females. The study also finds that the relationship between ability and entry into self-employment has changed over time, and that ability is positively associated with the performance of self-employed.

• Journal of vocational education research
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.119-138
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to analyze the factors influencing of separation and the time of separation for middle and old aged self-employed workers. The cox proportional hazards model was used in the first survey of KLoSA, 684 persons who were over 40 years old in 2006, using data up to the 5th period of 2014. The main findings of this study are as follows. First, the average duration of job for middle and old aged self-employed workers in 2005 was 15.5years. Of the total 684 workers, 214(31.3%) person was found to have lost their job during survey period. Second, gender, age at start up, and education level have significant effects on job separation of them. When women, when they were older at start up, when they were graduate the university or higher, increased their risk of leaving their businesses. Third, in the characteristic of their work, the type of job and job satisfaction were found to affect to job desertion. When people are engaged in accommodation and food business rather than agriculture and forestry fishery, when the satisfaction of the work is lower, the risk was high. Based on these conlusions, the following implications are suggested. First, it is necessary to establish a support strategy for female middle-aged and old self-employed and older workers who start their own business after their 60s. Second, it is necessary to support them to enter into various fields by utilizing their own aptitude and experience rather than establishing them in industries with low entry barriers. Third, it is necessary to develop policies to help improve job satisfaction in the working environment. In particular, it is necessary to ensure that high educated self-employed workers are satisfied with various compensations by self-employed.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.108-113
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• 2021

Background: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between changes in employment status and new-onset depressive symptoms through a one-year follow-up of permanent waged workers. Methods: We analyzed the open-source data from the Korea Welfare Panel Study. Using the 2017 data, we selected 2,314 permanent waged workers aged 19 to 59 years without depressive symptoms as a base group. The final analysis targeted 2,073 workers who were followed up in 2018. In 2018, there were five categories of employment status for workers who were followed up: permanent, precarious, unemployed, self-employed, and economically inactive. Multiple logistic regression was used to determine the association between employment status change and new-onset depressive symptoms. Results: Adjusted multiple logistic regression analysis showed that among male workers, workers who went from permanent status to being unemployed (odds ratio: 4.50, 95% confidence interval: 1.19 to 17.06) and from permanent status to being precarious workers (odds ratio: 3.15, 95% confidence interval: 1.30 to 7.65) had significantly high levels of new-onset depressive symptoms compared with those who retained their permanent employment status. There were no significant increases in new-onset depressive symptoms of male workers who went from permanent status to being self-employed or economically inactive. On the other hand, no significant differences were found among female workers. Conclusion: Our study suggests that the change of employment status to precarious workers or unemployment can cause new-onset depressive symptoms in male permanent waged workers.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.45-71
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• 2022

This paper studies potentially relevant factors affecting changes in the number of self-employed in Korea during the period of 1986-2018. The number of self-employed had increased steadily until 2002 but started to decrease around that time and had continued to decline. The increasing trend in the number of self-employed during 1986-2001 is mostly explained by demographic changes, whereas the declining trend during 2002-2018 cannot be explained by demographic factors. In this study, I consider four institutional factors that potentially affect the decrease in the number of self-employed after 2002: i) a decrease in the job-separation rate of wage workers, ii) an increase in the income tax rate applied to the self-employed, iii) an increase in minimum wages, iv) an expansion of unemployment insurance benefits. Using a search and matching model with the self-employed, I quantify the effects of these four factors on the decrease in the number of self-employed during 2002-2018. Quantitative results show that the impact of the increase in the minimum wage is relatively large, whereas the effects of the other three factors are limited. The increase in the minimum wage accounts for approximately 17.5% (0.169 million) of the decrease in the number of self-employed during 2002-2018 (0.964 million).

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.34-44
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• 2008

Purpose: This study was conducted to find out the effects of self-efficacy on job stress symptoms and coping strategies depending on perceived job stress. Method: The subjects were 447 workers employed in a manufacturing company. Demographic characteristics, self-efficacy, job stress, job stress symptoms and coping strategies were assessed by a self-administered questionnaire. Each envelope to keep the secret sealed completed questionnaires. Result: Job stress and job stress symptoms in workers with a high level of self-efficacy were lower than those of a low level of self-efficacy. Active coping strategies in workers with a high level of self-efficacy group were higher than those of a low level of self-efficacy. In multiple regression analysis, job stress symptoms were significantly higher in increasing job stress, increasing self-efficacy, office workers, manager group and increasing age. Active coping strategies were significantly higher in increasing self-efficacy, increasing career, males and decreasing job stress. Whereas passive coping strategies were significantly higher in females, increasing job stress and increasing self-efficacy. Conclusion: This study suggests that self-efficacy is a significant factor on job stress, job stress symptoms and coping strategies. Therefore, developing a job stress management program to increase self-efficacy and verifying its effects are needed.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.137-165
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• 2000

This paper empirically analyzes the behavioral patterns of the labor flows surrounding self-employment. One of the findings is that, while a substantial portion of the labor flows into (and from) the self-employment sector is a movement from (and into) the non-employment, such flows are largely confined to a relatively small group of marginal workers. Still, the share of those marginal workers among the self-employed has declined steadily at least until the outburst of the financial crisis in 1997, evidencing that the job stability has been increased in this sector. On the other hand, the expected duration of self-employment has shown a downward trend up until 1990 but has increased since then. Such a trend reversal is also observed in the proportion of the labor force self-employed, indicating that the former is at least partly responsible for the latter.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.207-230
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• 2001

This paper uses the Korean Labor Panel data to investigate changes in the employment types of male workers following their job changes with the classification of workers into three categories: regular wage workers, non-regular wage workers, and self-employed workers. It also estimates a competing-risks hazard model to analyze the determinants of employment types of workers. The results show that the type of employment of a worker at an immediate previous job has a critical importance in determining his employment type at a new job and that the types of employment at jobs other than the immediate previous job also play some role in determining the type of employment at a new job, although their impact declines as the number of intervening jobs increases. A job loser, who worked as a non-regular worker at his immediate previous job, for example, is considerably less likely to find a regular job, but more likely to get reemployed at another non-regular job than one who worked as a regular worker at his immediate previous job. Similarly, a worker who quit self-employment is much less likely to find a regular job but more likely to restart his own business than one who worked as a regular worker at his immediate previous job. These findings suggest that it is not easy at all for a worker who worked as either a non-regular worker or self-employed worker to become a regular worker, although it might be premature to assert that non-regular jobs or self-employed jobs are dead-end jobs. Another interesting finding of this analysis is that a high unemployment rate lowers a probability of reemployment at either regular jobs or self-employed jobs, but raises a non-regular job reemployment probability, which strongly implies that as labor market conditions become adverse to workers the proportion of non-regular employment can rise rapidly.