Me-lancing

Do you work for yourself? The answer, and the question, may be more complicated than you think.
Consider the office temp who works for 36 weeks a year and spends the remaining time travelling in India. She is much more in the driving seat of her working life than many of the self-employed, who find it difficult to turn down work or take holidays for fear of losing customers or income. Or what about the person who deliberately chooses part-time work so he has more time to pursue his own private passions or family?

Neither of these people is self-employed. Yet in a real sense both are working for themselves. They have achieved a greater degree of autonomy, ownership and control of their working lives than many who enter self-employment seeking the same things. Isn't it this, rather than who pays your wages, which determines whether you truly work for yourself? Because our language lacks a word for this kind of worker, we need to invent one: me-lancers.

From The Guardian