1 Life in Small Business in Australia: Evidence from the HILDA Survey Justin B. Craig*, Michael Schaper**, and Clay Dibrell*** Paper presented at the HILDA Survey Research Conference, University of Melbourne, July 19- 20, 2007 Abstract Comparatively, very little of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics (HILDA) data set has been used to analyse the activities of Australian small business owner-operators, even though there are currently some 1.8 million small firms in existence. Using multiple waves of the HILDA survey, in this paper we investigate three important research questions related to life in a small business in Australia. Question one seeks to uncover differences between small business respondents and employees of private sector firms, by examining issues related to (i) life satisfaction, (ii) job satisfaction, (iii) individual priorities, (iv) perceived prosperity, (v) risk preferences, and (vi) individual health (general health, vitality, social functioning, emotional well-being, mental health). The second question then examines whether the factors that contribute to life satisfaction are different for the self-employed and the employee groups. The third question aims to establish the effect that business closure has on individual functioning by comparing the perceptions of respondents whose business closes with those whose businesses continue to trade on many of the variables introduced in the first research question. Our principal findings are that the level of satisfaction between the self-employed and employee groups does differ significantly, and that the self-employed are more satisfied with their lives and their jobs than their employee counterparts. *Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Business, Co-Director, Australian Centre for Family Business, Bond University jcraig@bond.edu.au **Dean, Murdoch University Business School, michael.schaper@gmail.com *** Associate Professor of Strategic Management Oregon State University; Research Fellow, Australian Centre for Family Business, Bond University dibrellc@bus.oregonstate.edu