National context and atypical employment

Abstract

This article takes a macro-approach, examining country-level determinants of three types of atypical employment (fixed-term, part-time and self-employment) in 30 developed countries. Support is found for three hypotheses: atypical work arrangements are more prevalent (1) when there is a strong entrepreneurial culture, (2) when there are legal constraints on firms' ability to hire and fire workers and (3) when economic constraints force workers to accept atypical employment. The article also qualitatively examines three countries' legislative, judicial and economic histories with respect to atypical work, contrasting the three histories with the quantitative analysis. © The Author(s) 2010.