The distribution of wealth of older self-employed Britons

Little is known about the wealth of older self-employed people, despite growing interest in this
labour market group. This paper utilises the British Retirement Survey to fill the gap by providing
novel estimates of their lifetime wealth. The findings dispel the idea that the self-employed live in
poverty; indeed, they seem to be a relatively wealthy group, holding a broad spread of assets and
subject to moderate lifetime wealth inequality. These findings may help inform modelling of
retirement behaviour of this group, as well as pension policy design.