Social Class and the Self-Employed

The self-employed are characterised in the sociological literature as owning their own means of production and having considerable self-direction and autonomy within the work process. However, social survey and official statistics usually use arbitrary definitions, based upon method of payment of National Insurance or income tax, by which to define self-employment among those with no paid employees. Recent work, particularly by Hakim, makes it apparent that many of those officially designated as self-employed do not possess their the autonomy within the workplace or the productive capacity usually attributed to them by sociologists.