Self-employment, work and health: A critical narrative review
What is it about?
Little is known about how Self Employed (SE) workers are supported when they are unable to work due to illness, injury, and disability. Our paper critically reviews peer-reviewed literature focusing on advanced economies to understand how SE’d workers navigate, experience, or manage their injuries and illness when unable to work. We conducted a systematic search and screening, identifying 18 relevant articles that we critically examined and synthesized.
Why is it important?
We found the work and health needs of different kinds of SE’d workers, taking into consideration class, gender, sector, and gig workers are not distinguished. Many articles noted poor social security system supports. Drawing on a social justice lens, we argue that SE’d workers make significant economic contributions, and are deserving of support from social security systems when ill or injured.