abstract: 'Purpose

  This paper aims to study the impact of micro-level socio-economic,

  demographic and geographical factors on the likelihood of

  self-employment entry of young adults in Palestine and filling a gap in

  the analysis of determinants of self-employment for young adults in

  Palestine.

  Design/methodology/approach

  The research design is based on a multinomial logistic (MNL) model and

  on the testing of seven hypotheses deriving from the review of the

  theoretical and empirical literature, using a micro-level longitudinal

  data set from the Palestinian Labour Force Surveys (PLFS) between 2009

  and 2016. In the analysis, the dependent variable (employment status) is

  a discrete variable that takes four unordered and independent outcomes:

  wage employee, self-employed, employer and unpaid family member.

  Findings

  This study has strong evidence that the likelihood of self-employment

  increases with age. However, results are inconsistent with the

  well-known curvilinear relationship between age and self-employment.

  Regarding the role of gender, results show that young men are more

  likely to become self-employed than young women. Results indicate that

  there is a significant and negative impact of an increasing level of

  education on self-employment entry for both youth and the whole

  population. On the opposite, training after graduation increases the

  likelihood of self-employment entry for youth with high education level.

  Besides, this paper finds that young workers living in urban areas have

  more likelihood to enter self-employment than those in rural areas and

  young workers in Gaza have more likelihood to enter self-employment than

  their counterparts in West Bank.

  Practical implications

  First, in both West Bank and Gaza, young women are less inclined to

  actively engage in self-employment, which confirms structural

  inequalities between men and women. Therefore, this study calls for

  social protection programmes and for national programmes that would

  promote and develop women''s self-employment. Second, because this paper

  finds that youth self-employment is more an opportunity-driven

  phenomenon than a necessity-driven one, this study calls for programmes

  that provide youth with small business grants and training on

  entrepreneurship and business models.

  Originality/value

  Insights are valuable as both government institutions and universities

  and entrepreneurial startups can benefit from knowing which factors

  contribute to the self-employment likelihood of youth in Palestine and

  use the policy recommendations to develop capacity-building programmes

  to provide the youth and women with skills and competencies which enable

  them to turn to self-employment.'
affiliation: 'Morrar, R (Corresponding Author), An Najah Natl Univ, Nablus, Palestine.

  Morrar, Rabeh, An Najah Natl Univ, Nablus, Palestine.

  Amara, Mohamed, Univ Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia.

  Zwick, Helene Syed, ESLSCA Univ, Cairo, Egypt.'
author: Morrar, Rabeh and Amara, Mohamed and Zwick, Helene Syed
author-email: rabeh.morrar@najah.edu
author_list:
- family: Morrar
  given: Rabeh
- family: Amara
  given: Mohamed
- family: Zwick
  given: Helene Syed
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1108/JEEE-06-2020-0184
earlyaccessdate: MAR 2021
eissn: 2053-4612
files: []
issn: 2053-4604
journal: JOURNAL OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN EMERGING ECONOMIES
keywords: 'Self-employment; Entrepreneurship; Palestine; Opportunity-based

  entrepreneurship; Necessity-based entrepreneurship'
keywords-plus: 'NASCENT ENTREPRENEURSHIP; BUSINESS; GENDER; EDUCATION; SUCCESS; URBAN;

  START; SEGREGATION; PERFORMANCE; TRANSITION'
language: English
month: JAN 5
number: '1'
number-of-cited-references: '122'
orcid-numbers: Morrar, Rabeh/0000-0002-8808-3714
pages: 23-44
papis_id: a373d01f5130e9c5f2b6b05f8788d567
ref: Morrar2022determinantsselfempl
researcherid-numbers: Morrar, Rabeh/AAC-2886-2022
times-cited: '7'
title: The determinants of self-employment entry of Palestinian youth
type: article
unique-id: WOS:000634285300001
usage-count-last-180-days: '1'
usage-count-since-2013: '8'
volume: '14'
web-of-science-categories: Business
year: '2022'