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Title: Immigrant Self-Employment and the Effect of Immigrant Network Characteristics

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2011

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Abstract: In previous literature, immigrant enclaves, as they pertain to immigrant businesses, have most often been measured by the concentration of own-country immigrants living in an area. Despite the extensive previous research using this definition of enclave, the studies have produced little consensus and often inconclusive results regarding the enclaves affect on business ownership and income. In order to better answer the question of the effects of enclaves, we deviate from the previous literature in looking at not only the concentration of immigrants, but also at what characteristics of enclaves influence the decision of becoming self-employed and affect business income. Using a basic binary logit model for the probability of owning a business and a semi-log model for business earnings, though the percent of own-country immigrants in the MSA of residence does not seem to effect self-employment, the percent of any-country immigrants has a significant positive effect. We also find that both the income per capita and percent who speak poor English of own-country immigrants increases the probability of being self-employed and of business earnings.

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Authors: Ford, Noah

Publisher: Hamilton University

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Migration and Immigration

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