The determinants of self-employment relative to being a wage earner in Ladysmith, KZN

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dc.contributor.advisorProf Kaseeram, Irrshad
dc.contributor.advisorProf Contogiannis, Terry Elefherios
dc.contributor.authorKumalo, Siboniso Nhlanhla
dc.date.accessioned2025-11-18T08:28:19Z
dc.date.available2025-11-18T08:28:19Z
dc.date.issued2017
dc.degree.levelMasters
dc.degree.nameMasters of Commerce in Economics
dc.departmentNameEconomics
dc.descriptionThesis submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Administration and Law to fulfil the requirements for the Master of Commerce in Economics at the University of Zululand, South Africa.
dc.description.abstractFollowing the unprecedented increase in the self-employment rates in South Africa, the study probes the determinants of self-employment relative to being a wage earner within the context of black owned businesses in Ladysmith, KZN. A questionnaire was administered to 450 respondents comprising 299 gainfully employed and 151 self- employed blacks, using a combination of convenience and snowball sampling for the self- employed and random methods to identify wage/salary earners. The study employed a logistic regression model to estimate the probability of being self-employed relative to being a wage/salary earner focusing on household income per capita, education, age, marital status, family business background, risk propensity, gender and access to finance as independent variables, gathered from the questionnaire, to shed new light on self- employment determinants. The study used the Hosmer-Lemeshow test to assess goodness of fit and the Wald test to assess the contribution of individual predictors in the model. Supported by descriptive statistics and chi squared test, the logistic results showed a positive and meaningful relationship between self-employment and age suggesting that as one becomes older each year increases the probability of being self-employed by 3.27%. With regards to gender, the results showed a positive relationship suggesting that being female increases the possibility of being self-employed by 57.35%. On the other hand, marital status results suggested that being single decreases the chances of being self-employed by 55.56% indicating that single people are more likely to be gainfully employed. Furthermore results revealed that an additional year of education increases the possibility of being of self-employed by 13.07%. When a person has a family business background, the possibility of that person being self-employed is higher by 146%, and lastly, increased funding opportunities cause an increase in self-employment by 397%.
dc.facultyFaculty of Commerce, Administration and Law
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10530/58258
dc.language.isoen
dc.subjectSelf employment
dc.subjectBlack owned businesses
dc.subjectHousehold income
dc.subjectEntrepreneurship
dc.titleThe determinants of self-employment relative to being a wage earner in Ladysmith, KZN
dc.title.alternativeThe determinants of self-employment relative to being a wage earner in Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal
dc.typeMasters Theses
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