The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis released data showing that the share of self-employment in U.S. employment increased during the pandemic.
The data also shows that self-employment declined less and recovered more quickly than traditional employment did during the pandemic.
But one of the Fed's most interesting findings is women's growing share of self-employment during the pandemic.
As the St. Louis Fed chart below shows (click to enlarge), women's share of self-employment has been growing since 2008 - and it shot up during the pandemic.
The St. Louis Fed suggests that "the burden of home and child care placed on women in 2020 made self-employment a more attractive option."
We agree in terms of the large jump during the pandemic.
The data used in this study comes from the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS), which is the source of the monthly jobs report and unemployment data.
The CPS numbers include people who said they were self-employed during a specific reference week, and that self-employment was their primary source of work during the reference week.
These constraints are why the numbers are relatively low. The June CPS, for example, reported about 16.8 million self-employed workers.
Yesterday we reported on the Nonemployer Data Set. It uses tax data to estimate the number of U.S. solopreneurs. In 2019 the estimate was 27.1 million,
This is still substantially lower than the MBO State of Independence study estimate, which is that there were 51.1 million independent workers in 2021. This study uses a broader definition of independent work than the CPS and Nonemployer Dataset.
And other studies show even larger numbers of independent workers - some as high as 68 million.
These studies, surveys, and data collection efforts use different definitions of self-employment and methodologies. This makes understanding the numbers quite confusing.
But it does give us things to write about.
