Independent work: choice, necessity, and the gig economy

Classification of independent workers as “by choice” or “out of necessity”
As a next step, we divided the population of independent workers into workers who engage 
in independent work by choice (i.e., they want to stay independent) and by necessity (i.e., 
they would prefer working in a traditional job) by comparing their current way of working 
with their desired source of income. We conducted the analysis using data for independent 
workers providing services, since the vast majority of our respondents (over 90 percent) 
work that way and the data for these respondents was higher in fidelity. In our overall sizing, 
we then extrapolated the proportions of choice vs. necessity from independent workers to 
the entire independent workforce on a country-by-country basis with the assumption that 
the smaller goods- and asset-focused segments follow the overall trend.
Among independent workers, we looked at the answer to the question “What is your 
desired primary source of income?” for primary independent workers and to “What is 
your desired secondary source of income?” for those who supplement their income 
through independent work. We considered those who responded that they wanted to be a 
permanent employee in a full-time or part-time job to be independent by necessity. Those 
who said they wanted to work as a freelancer, own a business, or be a temporary employee 
were all considered to be independent by choice. Some respondents did not choose any 
of the provided options and wrote down their own desired source of income. Given that 
the vast majority of the responses were “retirement” or “social security,” we classified these 
workers as independent by necessity as well. Finally, some people who were categorized as 
independent workers according to our definition reported traditional work as their desired 
source of income while, at the same time, claiming that they were already pursuing their 
desire. To reconcile the discrepancy between the observed characteristics of a person’s 
job and their own perception of whether the job is traditional or independent, we decided to 
classify this group as independent by choice.
We made one exception to the general rule described above for independent workers 
on short-term temporary contracts. In their case, we explicitly asked why they were on 
a temporary contract, and we were thus able to make a more informed decision. We 
classified those who responded that they “[did] not want a job/activity that lasts longer” 
as independent by choice. Those who said their contract was for a probationary period 
or that their “company prefers arrangements with a defined end-date” were classified as 
independent by necessity.
Since some of the analyses described in this report feature a direct comparison between 
independent and traditional workers, we developed a parallel set of rules to separate the 
“by choice” and “by necessity” groups among traditional workers as well. In this case, we 
considered a traditional worker to be traditional by choice as long as their stated primary 
desired source of income was “working as a permanent employee” in a part-time or a 
full-time job. We labeled those who claimed they were already pursuing their desired 
source of income as “by choice” and those who did not select any of the options offered as 
“by necessity.”

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McKinsey Global Institute
Independent work: Choice, necessity, and the gig economy
As described in Chapter 2, choice and necessity seem to be major drivers behind workers’ 
satisfaction with their overall work life. Exhibits A6 and A7 expand on the analysis shown 
in Chapter 2 and provide a more detailed look into the impact of independence on 
respondents’ satisfaction, further breaking the results down by geography. Since the US 
and EU-15 sample sizes are not equal, we opted to show the raw differences between 
weighted mean satisfaction scores. In general, the results were qualitatively consistent 
between the United States and Europe. While traditional workers by choice were slightly less 
satisfied in Europe than in the United States, Europeans seem to derive a greater satisfaction 
benefit from becoming independent by choice. We did not see a similar effect in the “by 
necessity” group.