Working Paper Series,
Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: Little is known about self-employment as a career choice for women who marry a high-income spouse. We show that Swedish women who are married to a high-income spouse are, on average, highly educated and more likely to pursue self-employment than those married to a spouse in the middle of the income distribution. Using rich Swedish register data, we compare the likelihood of self-employment before and after marriage for women who marry a spouse in the top 1, 0.5 and 0.1 percent to those who marry a spouse in the middle of the income distribution. The likelihood of entering self-employment increases by 128–176 percent for women who marry a spouse in the top of the income distribution, and the shift into self-employment is associated with a lower income. The effect of marrying a high-income spouse is larger for women than for men.

Keywords: Career choice; Entrepreneurship; Marriage; Self-employment; Women

JEL-codes: J12; J13; J16; J22; L26

Language: English

41 pages, First version: February 12, 2018. Revised: November 19, 2020. Earlier revisions: March 15, 2018, October 23, 2020.

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