Martin Obschonka, a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Amsterdam, and his colleagues came to this conclusion by following 348 entrepreneurs and 1,002 salaried employees for nearly six months. They asked them to complete several questionnaires to find out how they felt about their working lives.

Entrepreneurs are often portrayed as workaholics who cannot maintain a healthy work-life balance. They can be very demanding of themselves, which prevents them from setting limits or boundaries.

Indeed, entrepreneurs often take big risks to set up their businesses; they invest their time, their money, and their hopes in such ventures. As such, it’s hard to take it easy when faced with the possibility of failure.

This overinvestment should theoretically make entrepreneurs, especially first-timers, more vulnerable to stress and burnout – but this doesn’t appear to be the case. The researchers found that they were, on average, at lower risk of developing this kind of psychological disorder than salaried employees.

This is what they call the paradox of “positive workaholism”.

“The work of entrepreneurs actually appears to result in fewer daily work stressors – such as work pressure, time pressure, and administrative tasks – compared with paid work,” Obschonka explains in a statement.

“In addition, entrepreneurship offers one a high degree of personal work autonomy. All this leads to a positive psychological return on the substantial investment that entrepreneurs make due to their great involvement in the work.”

As a result, entrepreneurs have more energy and a better state of mind than their corporate counterparts. They are also happier and more satisfied with their work.

The scientists noticed that this was particularly the case for those who worked alone. However, the risk of burnout increased as they grew their business and hired people.

All of which shows, according to the researchers, that entrepreneurship can bring a certain professional serenity.

“If we can maximise the psychological utility of working as an entrepreneur, it promises not only personal benefit in the entrepreneurial sector but also, more broadly, to the development of healthy, motivated, and well-rewarded entrepreneurs running their businesses, collectively generating broader social and economic benefits,” said Obschonka.

Note, however, that the study – recently published in the Journal of Business Venturing – has a methodological bias: it was conducted before the pandemic, a period many entrepreneurs found difficult to cope with.