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Given the anticipated negative impact of Brexit on the U.K. economy, it might be expected that self-employed individuals would have favoured remaining in the European Union. However, the self-employed are also more likely to have certain demographic characteristics that are associated with voting leave in the 2016 referendum. We investigate such potentially offsetting influences using nationally representative survey data and find that self-employed men were more, and women less, likely to be leave voters compared to the paid-employed. The differences were statistically significant for men but a Gelbach decomposition reveals that they can largely be explained by characteristics, specifically age and education. Our findings, especially for self-employed men, are discussed within the context of the important economic consequences that Brexit continues to have on small businesses in the United Kingdom as well as the need for further evidence on the voting behaviour of the self-employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the changing relationship between attitudes towards European Union (EU) membership and workers affected by globalization and technological advances in the lead-up to the UK's EU referendum in 2016. It is found that workers employed in middling occupations, where both relative wages and employment have fallen, were significantly more likely than workers in high-paying occupations to indicate that the UK's long-term policy should be to leave the EU. This view was particularly noticeable amongst males with middling occupations in the post-recessionary period between 2012 and 2015 and had increased significantly relative to the mainly prerecessionary period between 2004 and 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates have persisted about the character of the East–West population flows that followed the EU expansions. Some of the discussions surround the extent to which the mobility has been temporal and hence how likely these migrants are to settle permanently or to stay for long periods in host countries. This paper enhances the understanding of such issues through examining survey data on 700 Polish recent migrants in seven English and Welsh towns and supplemented by an analysis of qualitative data. Three categories of migrants are initially identified on the basis of their intentions of stay in the UK. Multinomial logit models are then estimated to examine the characteristics of individuals in each category to establish the factors that influence migration strategies and changes in plans. Results indicate that although standard socio-economic characteristics tend to be insignificant, migration strategies and changes in intentions are affected by migrant's view of whether their job matches their expectations, the time of entry into the UK and remittances. Analysis of the qualitative information reinforces some of the key findings and also indicates the importance of migrants' ability to reference their experiences in two settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom was one of only three countries to allow migrants from accession countries to enter their labour markets more or less without restriction following European Union enlargement in May 2004. Therefore, it is important to establish the characteristics and labour market performance of migrants from these countries who have subsequently entered the United Kingdom. We principally analyse Labour Force Survey data to compare the labour market outcomes of recent migrants from Poland and other accession countries to those of earlier migrant cohorts from these countries as well as to those of other recent migrants to the United Kingdom. We find that the majority of post-enlargement migrants from the new member states have found employment in low paying jobs, despite some (especially Poles) possessing relatively high levels of education. It follows that recent Polish migrants typically have lower returns to their education than other recent arrivals. Migrants from the new member states who arrived immediately prior to enlargement have similar characteristics and labour market outcomes, apart from displaying a higher propensity to be self-employed. These results are discussed in the context of policy changes, migration strategies, assimilation effects and possible impacts on the sending countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]