Page 446 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS320 Tine Cordes et al.
dependent contractor is operationally or economically dependent on another
economic unit. The further explanations contained in the ICSE-18-definition of
the concept are possible characteristics or conditions, not based solidly on
either a theoretical basis or a proven empirical identification, but more loosely
on observations of real-life phenomena, such as platform work, pro forma self-
employment and home assembly. Such phenomena are of a very diverse
nature, not only in different types of economies, but sometimes even within a
single national economy.

2. Methodology

2.1. The 2017 test of dependent contractors
As part of the preparation for ICSE-18, ILO had some questions added to
the Danish LFS in the second quarter of 2017. The questions were meant to try
to capture main aspects of the description of a dependent contractor. The
questions were integrated into the 2017 ad hoc module on self-employment
developed by Eurostat. Indicators of economic and operational dependency
were subsequently chosen from the module and grouped by ILO into three
different tentative definitions of dependent contractors. All three definitions
were delimited to self-employed without employees who did not own an
incorporated company (the test group). According to the first definition a
dependent contractor was characterized by the fact that at least 75 percent of
income came from the same client and the client controlled the working time
of the worker. According to the second definition a dependent contractor was
characterized by not controlling price-setting of his or her products. According
to the third definition a dependent contractor was characterized by sharing
profit with a third party. In the Danish test definition three had a very large
part of respondents which was not part of any of the other two definitions,
and moreover the group did not seem to be exposed in any way. Furthermore,
test results from other countries also suggested problems with this definition,
and it was consequently dropped from being mentioned in the resolution.
Therefore this definition will not be looked into in this paper. Instead the
results of the remaining two definitions will be reviewed.
2.2. Further Analysis
The 2017 ad hoc module contained more questions related to limitations
in economic or operational liberties for self-employed and to working
arrangements that may be similar to those of employees. Such questions may
indicate that the worker could be a dependent contractor. Among these
potential indicators we include the questions used in the first two ILO-test
definitions. The set of indicators of being a dependent contractor is then
expanded to:

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