We Care (Un)Equally: Self-Employment or Traditional Employment?

Ieva: Hello and welcome back to „We Care (Un)Equally.” As you know, this podcast is part of the international CarediZo project, where we explore the intersection of unpaid care work and paid employment. I say „intersection,” although in reality there is often very little balance—whether we’re talking about the distribution of care work, gender inequality, or different forms of employment.

Today we’re going to talk about self-employment and working under an individual activity certificate. Joining me is psychologist Gintvilė Alkevičė, who works independently. Welcome, Gintvilė!

Gintvilė: Hello!

Ieva: Thank you for joining us today. I’ve prepared a few questions, so let’s dive right in.

Our project focuses on micro-enterprises. More than 90 percent of businesses in the European Union fall into this category, and people working under an individual activity certificate are also considered micro-businesses. So, whether you knew it or not, you’re essentially running a very small business. Could you tell us what working independently looks like in practice?

Gintvilė: Thank you for inviting me. I would say that, fundamentally, it’s the same as any other job. The difference is that you’re responsible for everything yourself—you have to find clients, manage your taxes, organize your schedule. In short, you’re responsible for every aspect of your work. But the work itself is, essentially, just like any other job.

Ieva: There are many assumptions about self-employment. People often say that when you work for yourself you have much more freedom—you work whenever you want, take holidays whenever you want, and so on. Is that really the case?

Gintvilė: Both yes and no. On the one hand, there definitely is more freedom. You have greater flexibility and can organize your working hours in a way that suits you. But with that freedom comes much more responsibility because all the planning rests on your shoulders. You’re also fully responsible for your income, which is, of course, very important.

Ieva: When you’re the one deciding your working hours, pace, and workload, I imagine it’s easier to fall into the mindset that the more you work, the more you’ll earn, since the connection is so direct. Does that make it easier to get caught up in work?

Gintvilė: Absolutely. I think it can lead to burnout much more quickly because it feels like you have complete control over your income—you can always increase it simply by working more.

Ieva: Many employment benefits come specifically with a standard employment contract—for example, paid annual leave or additional paid days off for parents. These are especially important when we talk about balancing care responsibilities. Are there things that people working independently tend to miss the most? Not necessarily for you personally, but in general.

At the same time, I’d also like to ask about balancing work and care responsibilities. How easy or difficult is it to combine work and personal life when you’re able to set your own schedule?

Gintvilė: There are definitely far fewer guarantees. For example, holidays are unpaid. If you decide to take time off, you immediately experience a financial loss because you’re not working and therefore not earning.

The same applies when you’re ill. Employees with a standard employment contract receive sick pay from their employer for the first days of illness, and then the State Social Insurance Fund („Sodra”) takes over. When you’re self-employed, you’re effectively your own employer, so no one pays you for those first days. After that, any benefit depends on how much social insurance you’ve contributed. So it’s definitely a more difficult situation.

You also don’t receive additional benefits like paid parental days off. Overall, there are significantly fewer protections and benefits.

Ieva: Throughout our project we’ve been talking a lot about balancing work, personal life, and care responsibilities. So I’d like to ask: do you personally find it easier or harder to balance your professional and personal life when there aren’t clearly defined holidays or other boundaries? Does being fully responsible for your own schedule give you more freedom, or does it actually make things more complicated?

Gintvilė: I think it depends a great deal on a person’s circumstances and lifestyle. Personally, I find this model more comfortable. The flexibility that comes with self-employment is definitely worth it for me because I can organize everything according to my own needs.

That said, it’s important to mention that I don’t work exclusively as a self-employed professional. I also have a part-time job under a standard employment contract. For me, that’s a kind of safety net—something I can rely on.

If you have a family or other people who depend on you, working exclusively as a self-employed person can create quite a lot of insecurity. If you get sick, need to care for a child, or simply want to take some time off, there’s very little to fall back on.

I’ve experienced different arrangements throughout my career—working only independently, as well as combining self-employment with salaried work. Based on that experience, I can honestly say that having at least some work under an employment contract is very valuable. When you’re entirely self-employed, the feeling of uncertainty is much greater.

Ieva: So it sounds like what’s missing when you’re working solely as a self-employed professional is a certain sense of security. As you said yourself, there’s nothing to fall back on, so facing life’s challenges and unexpected risks can feel a bit more uncertain.

Gintvilė: Yes, I’d say that’s true. There’s definitely more uncertainty because you never know whether you’ll have enough clients. And if you’re developing a product and something doesn’t work out, you’re the one who has to absorb all the losses. When you’re employed under a standard contract, the support system is much clearer—you have an employer who shares part of the responsibility and provides a greater sense of security. So I think one of the most important qualities for anyone working independently is the ability to tolerate uncertainty and accept that tomorrow is never fully guaranteed.

Ieva: You mentioned that having an employer provides a certain sense of security and support. On the other hand, an employer also limits your freedom to some extent—working hours are usually fixed, you know when you can take leave and how much leave you’re entitled to. With self-employment, at least at first glance, there seems to be much more flexibility.

Since you’ve experienced both salaried employment and self-employment—and even combined the two—I wanted to ask specifically about flexibility. Throughout our project, almost everyone we’ve interviewed has described flexibility as one of the most important factors in balancing work and care responsibilities. We’ve heard this from the director of the Kretinga Women’s Information and Training Centre, from researchers, and from many others. Everyone keeps coming back to flexibility. What’s your perspective? Where is there more of it, and where is it easier to create flexible working conditions?

Gintvilė: I think it depends a lot on the nature of the work and on the employer. People’s experiences can be very different. But generally speaking, self-employment definitely offers more flexibility.

Of course, I’m speaking from my own perspective as a psychologist. My work consists of scheduled client sessions, while the rest of my time is dedicated to preparation, administrative tasks, maintaining my website, and managing social media. Because of that, I have quite a lot of freedom in organizing my schedule.

If we were talking about a different type of self-employment—where someone has to be physically present at their workplace all day or continuously provide services or manufacture products—the situation might look very different. But in my case, there’s definitely more flexibility.

Even when something unexpected happens, I don’t have to ask anyone for permission or submit requests. I can simply contact my clients and reschedule a session. The same goes for holidays. They’re unpaid, of course, but I decide when to take them and how long to be away, without needing anyone’s approval. That removes quite a lot of stress.

Ieva: It sounds like there isn’t one simple answer. Both employment models have their advantages and disadvantages, and flexibility itself has two sides as well.

But let’s imagine for a moment. If you had to choose just one option for the rest of your career—either self-employment or salaried employment—which would you choose?

Gintvilė: I would still choose self-employment. For me, the flexibility and the feeling of freedom outweigh the downsides. Of course, in the beginning you have to learn to set boundaries so you don’t fall into the trap of working more and more until you burn out. You need to learn how to manage your time, your rest, and your workload. But once you find your rhythm, at least for me, self-employment becomes the better option.

Ieva: Thank you for your answer. It’s really interesting to hear the perspective of someone who’s experienced both ways of working.

You mentioned that you’re a psychologist, so now I’d like to speak to you in that role, not only as someone who’s self-employed. I’m interested not just in your own work experience but also in the issues your clients bring into therapy. Do conversations about care responsibilities, work, and balancing different responsibilities come up often?

Gintvilė: Since we talked before the interview about how care really includes almost everything related to caring and relationships, I’d say yes—it’s one of the most common themes. It’s deeply connected to everyday life, so people naturally bring these issues into therapy.

Ieva: Not long ago I saw a post from a family lawyer on social media. She works with divorce cases and said that one of the things she hears most often is that people are simply exhausted by each other. They feel disappointed because one partner believes they’re carrying much more of the shared responsibilities while the other isn’t contributing enough.

So I’d like to ask you, as a psychologist: does an unequal distribution of care work and other shared responsibilities affect relationships? Is this something that frequently comes up in your consultations?

Gintvilė: Absolutely. It’s a very important topic. I think an unequal division of responsibilities has a significant impact on relationships.

People often begin to feel that the relationship is no longer equal. One partner feels they’re carrying a heavier load, that their efforts go unnoticed or unappreciated. That leads to exhaustion, sadness, resentment, and anger. Sometimes people can’t even fully identify what they’re feeling, but those emotions continue to build up over time. Eventually, they begin to affect the relationship quite significantly and create considerable difficulties.

Ieva: That makes perfect sense. No relationship is perfect, and an equal division of responsibilities doesn’t just happen on its own. So I’d like to ask—what advice would you give to couples who want to communicate better and express their needs more clearly? After all, when care responsibilities are shared unequally, the emotions that follow often signal that someone’s needs are not being met. What would you recommend?

Gintvilė: I think being able to express your needs is incredibly important. When needs go unmet, it’s natural for difficult emotions to arise. Some people talk about them openly, while others express them indirectly—through hints, passive behaviour, or silent resentment.

I also don’t believe that the ideal division always has to be exactly fifty-fifty. Life simply isn’t something you can measure with a ruler. Sometimes one partner feels the other is doing less, while in reality they may be carrying responsibilities that aren’t as visible or easy to measure.

That’s why trust and having a safe space to talk are so important. What seems completely obvious to one person when it comes to household chores or caring for children may be entirely new to the other—or simply never have become part of their routine.

A classic example is taking out the rubbish. One person thinks it should be taken out every day; the other waits until the bin is completely full. If something matters to you, you have to talk about it. And you also need to accept that sometimes you’ll have to say the same thing more than once.

So my advice would be to communicate, but also to trust the other person. Try not to approach these conversations from a place of suspicion or accusation—saying things like, „You never do enough.” That can easily make the other person feel unappreciated, and that’s often how conflicts begin to spiral.

Ieva: And very often people don’t fail to do something out of bad intentions. I can share a personal example—my husband won’t let me lie about this. I had honestly never noticed the dust on our skirting boards. Then one day he asked, „Do you think we could finally wipe the dust off them?” And I was genuinely surprised because, until that moment, I hadn’t even realized they were dusty.

It’s very similar to your example about taking out the rubbish. Different things catch different people’s attention. One person thinks the rubbish should be taken out every day, while another doesn’t. We all bring different habits into our relationships.

There’s another thought I’d like to discuss. You mentioned that not everything has to be measured as fifty-fifty. Recently I came across the idea that relationships are never permanently fifty-fifty. Sometimes one partner gives seventy percent while the other gives thirty. At another point, the roles reverse. One person might be going through a particularly difficult period, so the other naturally carries more.

What do you think? Are relationships really that dynamic and constantly changing?

Gintvilė: I completely agree with that idea. I think we hear the fifty-fifty model so often in public discussions that it starts to sound like the only correct way for a relationship to work. But that can also create a tendency to constantly keep score—who did more, who contributed less.

And that usually doesn’t lead anywhere good.

I think it’s perfectly normal that during one stage of life the balance might be seventy-thirty, and later it could be the opposite. On top of that, there are so many things that simply can’t be measured.

Yes, we can count who washed the dishes or dusted the shelves. But there’s also the emotional load a person carries—thinking about the family, planning everything, worrying about everyone. You can’t easily measure that, and sometimes the person carrying it can’t even fully describe how demanding it is.

So I think the most important thing isn’t to keep score, but to truly see one another.

Ieva: Exactly—to remember that a relationship is a partnership where we support one another and contribute to a shared life.

Gintvilė: Exactly. Of course, if the situation is very clear and one person is consistently carrying a much heavier burden, then it’s important to talk about it. The person carrying more shouldn’t give up or stay silent. They should try to help their partner understand what the situation looks like from their perspective.

Because if the imbalance becomes very significant—if it’s no longer seventy-thirty but something much more extreme—then it becomes a serious issue that needs to be addressed.

Ieva: So perhaps the main message for our listeners is simply: talk to each other?

Gintvilė: Yes. It’s a very classic piece of advice, but probably the most important one—keep talking.

Ieva: And I’d like to add one more important thing. If you are talking but those conversations don’t feel safe—if your partner responds with anger, aggression, humiliation, or if you simply feel unsafe in your relationship—I want to remind you that the Women’s Information Centre in Vilnius operates a Specialized Comprehensive Assistance Centre.

We provide support to people who have experienced domestic violence, as well as to those who are questioning whether what they’re experiencing in their relationship is abuse and why they don’t feel safe.

If any of this sounds familiar, please don’t be afraid to seek help. You can find more information at lygus.lt.

Gintvilė, thank you so much for this conversation, for your time, and for sharing both your experience and your insights.

And to all our listeners, we invite you to follow the Women’s Information Centre on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and of course, keep listening to us here on Spotify. Thank you for being with us, and see you next time!

Gintvilė: Thank you. Goodbye!