New Research Reveals Self-Employed Individuals Have Better Work/Life Balance, Job Satisfaction, and Less Stress

file photo by Boyd Loving

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, it’s no secret that in the past three years, the lure of remote working has never been stronger – and US individuals are increasingly turning to the gig economy and self-employment in order to achieve their re-shuffled priorities.

In 2020 alone, the gig economy grew by 33% (Forbes), and that rise of self-employment and budding entrepreneurialism continues to grow in 2023 – despite data showing that self-employed individuals earn considerably less on average.

The experts at Moneyzine.com just this month released a ground breaking survey that takes a deep dive into the job satisfaction, work/life balance, stress levels, and income of self-employed individuals and employed workers across the US.

Remote work and the gig economy has been an increasingly popular topic in the past few years as the aftermath from the pandemic left millions re-shuffling their priorities.

While the individuals that are self-employed in the US may be a small pool compared to the employed workforce (16.2 million vs 160.72 million), new research from Moneyzine.com has revealed that while self-employed workers earn, on average, less than employed workers across all states in the US – they also report far higher levels of job satisfaction, a better work/life balance, and less stress overall.

Key Findings

Here’s some key findings of the study carried out earlier this month. The survey was conducted by Moneyzine.com on 2,000 US adults, split evenly between self-employed and employed individuals to survey their overall job satisfaction.

1 In 3 self-employed workers are dissatisfied with their current income

1 in 3 self-employed workers reported being very dissatisfied with their current income – with 13% saying that they were currently very dissatisfied.

Employed respondents, on the other hand, sat squarely in the middle – with most not overly satisfied or dissatisfied with their income as opposed to their counterparts, who seem to have a much stronger opinion on the matter. Just 5% of the respondents from this group were very dissatisfied with their income – a sharp difference.

We looked at the most recent five years of data from the US Census on the mean earnings of salaried workers vs self-employed workers across every state in the US (graphs can be found within the article linked above), and found that, on average, self-employed workers currently earn a huge 56% less than salaried workers. In the District of Columbia, where wages tend to be amongst the highest in the country, self-employed workers earn a mean salary of 70% less than salaried workers. The smallest gap is in West Virginia, but even then, self-employed workers earn 41.5% less.

4 in 10 self-employed individuals are happy with their current employment status – whilst 1 in 3 employed individuals would describe themselves as unhappy or very unhappy in their current status.

45% of self-employed respondents were satisfied with their work/life balance – a markedly higher figure than the employed pool of respondents.

Additionally,  Just 4% of employed respondents said their job is not stressful at all, compared to 1 in 10 of self-employed individuals who report zero stress-levels at work. Despite working set contracted hours, employed workers have a worse work/life balance than self-employed individuals, with more self-employed workers very satisfied with their work/life balance.

17% of self-employed workers would not change their employment status for anything.

On the flipside, 95% of employed workers would change to self-employed for a number of reasons (income, increased job security, hours worked, or better work/life balance)

Being your own boss leads the charge for self-employed individuals

The top 3 reasons to be self-employed, according to the study, are:

1) being your own boss

2) flexibility

3) working independently