Suchergebnisse

Purpose
Migrant enterprises comprise about 10 per cent of all enterprises in Germany and are therefore a crucial part of the German economy and its entrepreneurial ecosystems. Relatedly, migrant entrepreneurship is a highly recognized topic within political discussions as well as within entrepreneurship research. While there is already an impressive body of work regarding the nature and quality of migrant enterprises, many questions regarding the personal motives and satisfaction of migrant entrepreneurs still remain unanswered, particularly with regards to their job satisfaction. Thus, this study aims to address such questions regarding the job satisfaction of entrepreneurs with different backgrounds.


Design/methodology/approach
Using the German Socio-Economic Panel data set, the authors close this research gap by investigating the job satisfaction of migrant entrepreneurs in Germany compared with native entrepreneurs.


Findings
First generation migrants show, in general, less job satisfaction than the native population. Second generation male migrant entrepreneurs' show less job satisfaction; however, this association is reversed for females: second generation female migrant entrepreneurs are more satisfied with their self-employment than their native counterparts.


Originality/value
These differing results lead to differing implications for policymakers who wish to create and develop entrepreneurial and labour market support for different target groups.

Purpose
In spite of numerous political initiatives, the proportion of self-employed women in Germany has stagnated. This paper aims to offer a new perspective on this problem. The investigation and data gathered about job and life satisfaction of women with families can provide information on the reasons for starting a business, and the low participation of women in entrepreneurial activity.


Design/methodology/approach
After a literature review, representative German panel data is analysed to investigate the job and life satisfaction of full- and part-time self-employed women with a family.


Findings
Self-employed women with families who work full-time are more satisfied with their jobs than those who work part-time. There is no statistically significant difference between these two groups with respect to their life satisfaction.


Research limitations/implications
An implication of the results suggests new ideas and a new focus by policy makers and politicians when trying to increase the quantity of women with families engaging in self-employment. A limitation is that a lack of "within" variation in the data means that the panel nature of the survey cannot be usefully incorporated into the investigation.


Originality/value
Until now, there is limited research about the work and life satisfaction of women with a family comparing full- and part-time self-employment. This analysis is potentially valuable because the number of part-time self-employed women is substantially higher than the number of full-time self-employed women. We find evidence that such women may instead prefer full-time self-employment.

Migrant enterprises comprise about 10% of all enterprises in Germany and are therefore a crucial part of the German economy and its entrepreneurial ecosystems. Relatedly, migrant entrepreneurship is a highly recognized topic within political discussions as well as within entrepreneurship research. While there is already an impressive body of work regarding the nature and quality of migrant enterprises, many questions regarding the personal motives and satisfaction of migrant entrepreneurs still remain unanswered (particularly with reference to gender and generation of migration). Using the German Socio-Economic Panel dataset, we close this research gap by investigating the job satisfaction of migrant entrepreneurs in Germany compared with native entrepreneurs, and also with conventionally employed migrants and natives. First generation migrants show, in general, less job satisfaction than the native population. Second generation male migrant entrepreneurs' show less job satisfaction, however this association is reversed for females: second generation female migrant entrepreneurs are more satisfied with their self-employment than their native counterparts. These differing results lead to differing implications for policy makers who wish to create and develop entrepreneurial and labour market support for different target groups.

Abstract
This article is a response to a piece in this journal, by David Bartram, which questions the validity of a vast literature establishing consistently a U-shaped relationship between age and happiness. There are 618 published studies that find U-shapes in that relationship in 145 countries, and only a handful that do not. Of the 30 countries that Bartram (2023, National Institute Economic Review, 1–15) examines, he finds U-shapes in 18. We show compelling evidence of U-shapes in the remaining dozen countries. Supporting evidence of a U-shape is found in objective measures including deaths of despair, depression, stress and pain that are worst in midlife.

AbstractThe cross‐sectional association between pain and unemployment is well‐established. But the absence of panel data containing information on pain and labor market status has meant that less is known about the direction of any causal linkage. Those longitudinal studies that do examine the link between pain and subsequent labor market transitions suggest results are sensitive to the measurement of pain and model specification. We contribute to this literature using large‐scale panel data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel (GSOEP) for the period 2002 to 2018. We show that workers suffering pain are more likely than others to leave their job for unemployment or economic inactivity. This probability rises with the frequency of the pain suffered in the previous month. The effect persists having accounted for fixed unobserved differences across workers, is apparent among those who otherwise report good general health and is robust to the inclusion of controls for mental health, life satisfaction and the employee's occupation.