Does Self-Employment Increase Stress? A Co-Twin Control Analysis of Finnish and US Twins
    
    Souitaris, V.  ORCID: 0000-0002-7889-0010, Nicolaou, N., Waters, J. , Shepherd, D. & Hashem, N. (2026).
    Does Self-Employment Increase Stress? A Co-Twin Control Analysis of Finnish and US Twins.
    Journal of Business Venturing, 41(1),
    
    article number 106556.
    
    doi: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106556
ORCID: 0000-0002-7889-0010, Nicolaou, N., Waters, J. , Shepherd, D. & Hashem, N. (2026).
    Does Self-Employment Increase Stress? A Co-Twin Control Analysis of Finnish and US Twins.
    Journal of Business Venturing, 41(1),
    
    article number 106556.
    
    doi: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106556
  
  
Abstract
Entrepreneurs enjoy autonomy and work on projects they are passionate about, which may improve their mental well-being and reduce stress. At the same time, they face several potential stressors, including long working hours. Empirical evidence on whether those who engage in self-employment experience greater stress than those who do not is mixed, which could reflect the failure to consider self-selection into entrepreneurial careers. In this paper, we re-examine the relationship between self-employment and stress, over and above the self-selection bias of individuals’ predispositions, using two separate studies of monozygotic twins. In the first study (monozygotic twins from Finland), stress is reported as a perceptual measure. In the second study (monozygotic twins from the United States), we measure cortisol as a physiological indicator of stress. In both studies, we show a positive association between self-employment and stress (both perceived and physiological) above and beyond the impact of genetic and rearing factors. We also show that long working hours mediate the relationship between self-employment and stress.
| Publication Type: | Article | 
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. | 
| Publisher Keywords: | Stress, Entrepreneurship, Twins | 
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HG Finance | 
| Departments: | Bayes Business School Bayes Business School > Faculty of Management | 
| SWORD Depositor: | 
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.
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