Social Media Platforms and Self-Employment: Evidence from South Asia

Özet

The rapid advancement of internet technologies facilitates people around the globe to connect, communicate and share different stuff through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube. Social media has become one of the most powerful tools to flourish business activities through advertising and marketing. Instead of relying on traditional jobs, people now can develop prospects for self-employment. Self-employment in its recent form is a new phenomenon, emerged mainly in the post-pandemic era due to the emergence of the e-commerce market. The focus of previous research remained on the adverse aspect of social media on health, education, politics, etc., but very few consider its favorable impact on the corporate sector. The study investigates the impact of social media platforms on enhancing self-employment opportunities in South Asian countries by using data from 2012 to 2023. The study concludes that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit significantly impact self-employment opportunities in South Asian countries. Whereas YouTube has a negligible impact on the creation of self-employment. Conclusively, findings highlight how the widespread use of social media foster self-employment and freelancing as a source of increasing economic wellbeing in the region.