Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health

Sec. Public Health Policy

Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1647494

This article is part of the Research TopicSocial Prescribing: Advancing Evidence-Based Public Health PoliciesView all articles

Employment Type and Policy Compliance with Strict Measures During Public Health Crises: Evidence from Self-Employed Workers in China

Provisionally accepted
Tongzhou  LyuTongzhou Lyu1*Ruyi  YanRuyi Yan1Yongxin  ZhaoYongxin Zhao1Jiangyin  WangJiangyin Wang2Xuke  ZhangXuke Zhang1Zhen  HongZhen Hong1Xiaozhu  HuangXiaozhu Huang3*
  • 1School of Politics and International Relations, East China Normal University, Shang Hai, China
  • 2Zhongnan University of Economics and Law School of Finance, Wuhan, China
  • 3Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Humanities, Shanghai, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Background: The rapid rise of non-standard types of employment—particularly self-employment—has significantly reshaped labor market structures and public policy systems. Compared to employees, self-employed individuals often lack long-term formal labor contracts and experience substantial income volatility, making them especially vulnerable. These vulnerabilities are further exacerbated during public health crises, adding complexity and uncertainty to policy implementation. This study examines the policy compliance of self-employed workers under strict public health measures, with the aim of exploring the relationship between employment type and policy compliance. Method: This study draws on 2,325 valid responses from the 2021 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS2021). An Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression model is employed to compare levels of policy compliance between self-employed individuals and employees under strict public health measures. The analysis further examines how structural differences associated with employment type influence compliance behavior. Results: Self-employed individuals demonstrate significantly higher levels of policy compliance than employees during public health crises, with results statistically significant at the 1% level. Heterogeneity analysis further indicates that low-income self-employed individuals exhibit even greater compliance, also significant at the 1% level. In addition, self-employed workers in digitally advanced regions show higher compliance compared to their counterparts in less developed areas, with this difference likewise significant at the 1% level. Conclusion: Employment type is closely associated with policy compliance during public health crises. Challenging the common view that self-employed individuals are less compliant due to weak institutional constraints, this study finds they are more willing to comply. Motivation theory helps explain this pattern: normative pressures and external cues may heighten their sense of responsibility, driving normative compliance. While income instability, limited social protection, and regulatory uncertainty amplify risk awareness, driving calculative compliance. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that low-income self-employed individuals, driven by heightened risk perception and limited resilience, are more likely to comply with policies. Those in digitally advanced regions also exhibit higher compliance, possibly due to more efficient access to information, stronger industry governance, and more effective government oversight. This study contributes to a theoretical understanding of how employment type influences policy behavior, highlighting the distinct constraints and motivational foundations for policy implementation.

Keywords: Employment type, policy compliance, self-employed individuals, public health crisis, COVID-19

Received: 15 Jun 2025; Accepted: 01 Sep 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Lyu, Yan, Zhao, Wang, Zhang, Hong and Huang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Tongzhou Lyu, School of Politics and International Relations, East China Normal University, Shang Hai, China
Xiaozhu Huang, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Humanities, Shanghai, China

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.