Preliminary communication
https://doi.org/10.15176/vol63no16
Involuntary Self-employment: Viable Ventures, Enduring Dissatisfaction
Dawn R. Rivers
orcid.org/0000-0003-0666-0651
; Independent scholar, Chapel Hill, USA
Abstract
This article examines three case studies profiling single-person (nonemployer) business owners with viable ventures who are nevertheless dissatisfied with their self-employment. These case studies are outliers from my project studying nonemployer business ownership as work rather than entrepreneurship. For this study, I interviewed 40 individuals across two field sites (one rural and one urban) over a 3-year period, as well as engaging in participant observation, and conducting two surveys. Overall, I found that most single-person business owners pursue self-employment in order to achieve greater autonomy, rebalance power in working relationships, and improve work–life balance. In contrast, the three individuals discussed here started their firms in response to labor market constraints, moral commitments, and productivity norms that limited the viability or desirability of waged or salaried employment. Ultimately, self-employment may offer autonomy, flexibility, and material survival, but it does not automatically confer social legitimacy, occupational identity, or a sense of having become the kind of worker one is expected to be. In this sense, nonemployer business ownership does not resolve the contradictions of contemporary labor so much as it reconfigures them, allowing individuals to remain economically active while still negotiating the enduring cultural power of the job.
Keywords
self-employment, work, identity, status, ableism, agency
Hrčak ID:
348031
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2026.
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