The COVID-19 pandemic has caused hardship to both individuals and businesses. Aggregate data indicate large increases in unemployment and bankruptcy since the beginning of the pandemic, but it is unclear which individuals and businesses are the most vulnerable. With “work absence”, “wage employment” and “unemployment” as three competing risks or events, we study the relationships of owner characteristics to self-employment duration during the COVID-19 pandemic (January-December 2020) in the United States with data from 19,174 respondents to the Current Population Survey. We find that several owner characteristics relate significantly to self-employment duration during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, young, female, and non-White self-employed individuals face a relatively high risk of unemployment. These and other findings have profound implications for policymakers.

COVID-19大流行给个人和企业造成了麻烦。总体数据表明，自大流行开始以来，失业和破产人数大量增加，但尚不清楚哪些个人和企业最脆弱。通过将“缺勤”，“工资就业”和“失业”作为三个相互竞争的风险或事件，我们研究了在美国COVID-19大流行期间（2020年1月至12月），所有者特征与自雇时间之间的关系，来自19,174名当前人口调查的受访者的数据。我们发现，在COVID-19大流行期间，一些拥有者的特征与自雇时间显着相关。具体来说，年轻，女性和非白人自雇人士面临较高的失业风险。