Gender Wage Gap is 10% Larger for Self-Employed

15 million Americans currently work for themselves, and up to 27 million more could join them in the next two years alone. The majority of self-employed professionals report being happier, healthier and having better work life balance. However, when you work for yourself life is full of uncertainties. Income can be inconsistent, securing a mortgage can feel impossible, and there are very few resources dedicated to helping people price their services.

While there is an extensive body of research that focuses on workers in corporate America, little is known about the millions of Americans that work for themselves. As more employees plan to leave their 9-5s in pursuit of self-employment the world is going to have to change in order to support the new, and increasingly independent way people work.

That’s why for the past two years, FreshBooks has run a comprehensive survey dedicated to sharing insights for and about people who work for themselves. When a significant gender earnings gap was discovered across customer data, FreshBooks decided to dedicate a portion of our annual study to learning more. If self-employed professionals aren’t dependent on corporate compensation decisions as employees do, and can control what they charge their clients, why does a gender earnings gap persist beyond corporate America?

In the first research of its kind, FreshBooks asked women who work for themselves or plan to work for themselves a series of questions to uncover their unique challenges and successes.

Read on to discover why more than 10 million women could become self-employed in the next five years, factors that may contributing to the earnings gap, and the annual median earnings of self-employed professionals controlled for gender, industry and business size.

Click for full-size image.