Senior self-employment: The case of the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, senior self-employment – defined as working in self-employment beyond state pension age – is on the rise. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of existing insights about senior self-employment in the Netherlands. After describing the institutional context, and presenting national statistics, in this chapter an overview is provided of two streams of literature related to senior self-employment. On the one hand, attention is paid to literature on the career self-employed and their retirement preparation and retirement behaviour. On the other hand, attention is paid to literature and new descriptive findings on post-retirement entry into self-employment (of former wage-employed workers). The existing empirical evidence suggests that for both groups of senior self-employed persons – both continuers and starters – prolonged employment was in the recent past often driven by opportunity. However, there are some indications that for future cohorts financial motives may start playing a more important role.