Social and Labor Status of Self-employed Workers

The article analyzes the social and labor situation of self-employed workers through the prism of the following indicators: number and sociodemographic characteristics, legal certainty of status, form of employment (official/unofficial), level, "transparency" and stability of wages, mode and intensity of work, availability of social benefits and guarantees. The identification of the features of the social and labor situation of the self-employed is based on their comparison with the standard employed workers working on the condition of an indefinite contract with the employer. The study is based both on theoretical approaches to the definition of self–employment, and on the results of statistical, analytical reports and data from the All-Russian study "The Precariat is a new phenomenon in the socio-economic structure of society." Based on these materials, the author identified the most important indicators of the social and labor status of the self-employed. It is shown that the social and labor situation of the self-employed (non-standard employment) is worse for a number of basic characteristics than the situation of those working under labor contracts with an employer (standard employment) and such negative characteristics as informal and unstable employment, low and unreliable income, overemployment (processing more than 8 hours a day, working on weekends and holidays), lack of social benefits and guarantees have become widespread in the work of the self-employed. A significant part of the self-employed are excluded from the state, public affairs, decisions, and politics, a possible consequence of which are: dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in the country, low political and civic responsibility, negative institutional and interpersonal trust. The author of the work shows that the objective analysis of the data on the social and labor status of the self-employed is complicated due to the lack of objective data on the general population of the object under study. Firstly, there is a theoretical and legal uncertainty of the category of "selfemployed", and in most studies the concepts of "self-employed", "individual entrepreneur", "freelancer" are not divorced. Secondly, self-employment can act as a primary, secondary and episodic work activity. Thirdly, despite the measures taken by the government, a significant part of the selfemployed continues to remain in the shadow zone of the market. At the same time, the conducted empirical research reveals the picture of the social and labor situation of a certain part of self-employed workers and gives an idea of the general problems and trends in the labor activity of this group.