Does self-employment provide a bridge to retirement?
研究了50岁以上工薪族转向自雇是否有助于延迟退休，发现自雇确实起到桥梁作用，但仅对高收入、健康、前景好的工人有效，而工作不稳定的工人更可能直接失业。
Abstract Non-employment including early retirement among individuals of older working age is a considerable concern. As life expectancies across the developed world continue to increase, individuals’ retirement savings often turn out to be inadequate. In policy circles, given the increasing old-age dependency ratio, self-employment is often seen as a potential route to extend the working lives of older labour force participants. By studying labour market switches of wage workers of 50 years and older, we investigate to what extent self-employment serves as a bridge to retirement. Using a longitudinal data base in European countries over the period 2005–2015, our findings suggest that although self-employment does serve as a bridge to retirement, this is much less likely to be the case for precarious wage workers—especially those with poor job prospects—than for wage workers at the higher end of the labour market, including those who are in good health and who have good job prospects in their current wage job. We also find that wage workers with precarious job conditions are more likely to switch into non-employment rather than into self-employment. Policy implications are discussed.