Racing to get self-employed? Life history models and self-employment

Entrepreneurship research has shown that self-employment is a result of individual, environmental, and social factors, however, there is a limited understanding of whether the extent of coalescence of these factors over time is associated with self-employment. Using Life History Theory, we examine whether a single Super-K factor, encompassing general health, social relationships, and general personality factors, is related to self-employment. Results indicate that the Super-K factor is positively associated with the likelihood of self-employment, and that self-employment partially mediates the path between Super-K and income. However, the effect size is small, but not negligible, for the likelihood of self-employment. Our results also indicate the negligible overarching role of life time accumulation of health, social relationships, and personality on income through self-employment.