Pandemic Depression: COVID-19 and the Mental Health of the Self-Employed

Marco Caliendo, Daniel Graeber, Alexander S. Kritikos, Johannes Seebauer

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice · 2023 · Volume 47 · Issue 3

Abstract

We investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on self-employed people’s mental health. Using representative longitudinal survey data from Germany, we reveal differential effects by gender: whereas self-employed women experienced a substantial deterioration in their mental health, self-employed men displayed no significant changes up to early 2021. Financial losses are important in explaining these differences. In addition, we find larger mental health responses among self-employed women who were directly affected by government-imposed restrictions and bore an increased childcare burden due to school and daycare closures. We also find that self-employed individuals who are more resilient coped better with the crisis.

Keywords

Self-employment, COVID-19, mental health, gender, representative longitudinal survey data, PHQ-4 score, resilience, L26, D31, I14, I18, J16

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