Self-Employed Individuals, Time Use, and Earnings

Abstract

This paper analyzes the time allocation of self-employed individuals and the impact of housework activities on earnings of self-employed individuals. In contrast to men and women in paid employment time allocation of self-employed individuals was more gendered with men performing more market work. Also differences in daily routine of activities occurred. While descriptive statistics and pooled OLS earnings regressions indicated a negative correlation between time spent on housework activities and earnings, fixed effects earnings regressions only showed a significantly negative impact on monthly earnings of self-employed men. This impact disappeared after controlling for potential endogeneity via instrumental variable estimators.