We investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on self-employed people’s mental health. Using representative longitudinal survey data from Germany, we reveal differential effects by gender: whereas self-employed women experienced a substantial deterioration in their mental health, self-employed men displayed no significant changes up to early 2021. Financial losses are important in explaining these differences. In addition, we find larger mental health responses among self-employed women who were directly affected by government-imposed restrictions and bore an increased childcare burden due to school and daycare closures. We also find that self-employed individuals who are more resilient coped better with the crisis.

我们调查了 COVID-19 大流行对个体经营者心理健康的影响。使用来自德国的具有代表性的纵向调查数据，我们揭示了性别的不同影响：虽然个体经营女性的心理健康状况出现了显着恶化，但个体经营男性在 2021 年初之前没有表现出显着变化。经济损失对于解释这些差异很重要. 此外，我们发现自营职业女性的心理健康反应更大，她们直接受到政府施加的限制的影响，并且由于学校和日托中心的关闭而承担了更大的育儿负担。我们还发现，更有弹性的个体经营者能更好地应对危机。