Grit and self-employment: a multi-country study

Blending the literatures on grit and self-employment, we propose the role of grit in separating the self-employed from the employed. Based on a sample of 13,210 respondents from nine countries, our results indicate that not only is grit related to self-employment, but also grit is more strongly related to self-employment for risk-takers, females, and younger individuals. The findings are robust, controlling for several individual characteristics and alternate specifications, and have implications for the broader literature on self-employment.