Successfully self-employed

The modern labor market is increasingly flexible, leading to a greater variety of self-employment careers beyond the traditional one-person business. To understand these evolving paths, this research adopted a long-term perspective, defining entrepreneurial success as continuously being self-employed across one’s entire career. The study explores this success by examining familial influences, regional context, and personal skills. Familial exposure, such as having self-employed parents or partners, increases the probability of choosing this path, although the decision often occurs later in a person’s career, typically after gaining experience in wage employment. The regional context significantly impacts success: in urban areas, success often appears as serial entrepreneurship or hybrid self-employment (combining a stable wage job with a part-time business), while rural contexts necessitate long-term ownership of a single successful company due to limited hybrid options. The high job satisfaction reported by the self-employed is mainly attributed to the autonomy and flexibility they enjoy. To ensure future survival, entrepreneurs must cultivate adaptability and a willingness to learn new skills and embrace new technologies. Given the constant need for adaptation in diverse modern self-employment, governmental policy must facilitate or incentivize professional development and lifelong learning for small-scale entrepreneurs.