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1. Introduction
This paper is concerned with why people report that they choose to be self-employed. During periods of economic crisis and rising unemployment individuals may be pushed towards self-employment in the absence of other opportunities. Under more benign conditions, individuals may report that they are attracted into self-employment for a variety of positive reasons related to market opportunity, financial betterment or personal autonomy. In current economic conditions necessity motives may have become more significant. However it may, in practice, be difficult to disentangle the extent to which individuals are pushed or pulled towards self-employment. Indeed this distinction may be ambiguous if particular motives conflate "push" and "pull" factors, or if individuals report a combination of "push" and "pull" motives.
Furthermore previous research has established significant differences in the pattern of reported motivations between men and women, with women significantly more likely to report personal and family concerns, and less likely to report financial motivation. An important question concerns whether women are more likely to report "push" motives to do with a desire for flexible working, whereas men are more likely to be motivated by financial and market-led concerns. Individual perceptions of why they chose self-employment may be idiosyncratic such that the precise meaning of particular motives is open to debate ([14] Brush, 1990). This paper investigates whether the push-pull dichotomy may be over-simplistic. Commonly reported motives may conflate both "pull" and "push" factors, with the balance influenced by contemporary economic conditions, as well as the differing personal circumstances of men and women.
Section 2 of the paper reviews the current literature. In Section 3 hypotheses concerning patterns of reported motivations are formulated. These are investigated in Section 4 through an analysis of large-scale survey data on ex post reported motivations for choosing self-employment for the UK. The data employed in the paper are subject to significant limitations, and thus implications for further future research are discussed in Section 5. Supported by the findings from the analysis the paper concludes in Section 6 by arguing for a refocusing of the theoretical and conceptual understanding of "push" vs "pull" motives. In particular, differences between men and women are highlighted. Implications are drawn for a more refined theoretical conceptual understanding of the "push" vs "pull" distinction,...