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%T How Vulnerable are the Self-Employed? Evidence from Ugandan Small-Scale Entrepreneurs %A Lakemann, Tabea %J Journal of Development Studies %N 9 %P 1391-1408 %V 59 %D 2023 %@ 1743-9140 %~ GIGA %> https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-93775-7 %X Due to small firm sizes and inter-linkages between household and business finances, small-scale entrepreneurs in developing countries are inherently vulnerable to temporary and permanent income shortfalls, and hence household poverty. While the International Labour Organisation (ILO) generally defines self-employment without employees as vulnerable employment, little empirical research has been done on the extent to which the self-employed are indeed vulnerable. This paper makes two main contributions: first, it operationalises the concept of vulnerability in the context of self-employment in developing countries by defining vulnerability as the risk of having business income below a living wage threshold. Secondly, it investigates the extent and correlates of vulnerability. Using a six-year balanced entrepreneur panel dataset from Kampala, Uganda, it is shown that the self-employed are heterogeneous with respect to vulnerability and observed earnings: 58-74% of the samples are classified as vulnerable in a given year and mostly earn incomes below the living wage threshold. Vulnerable entrepreneurs are shown to be significantly different from non-vulnerable entrepreneurs in several dimensions, including those that do not directly predict income. %C GBR %G en %9 Zeitschriftenartikel %W GESIS - http://www.gesis.org %~ SSOAR - http://www.ssoar.info