Ethnic capital and self-employment: A spatially autoregressive network approach

Artikel

Immigrants experience substantial disadvantages in employment in the host country. "Ethnic capital" (e.g. the ethnic network) is argued to provide a niche for immigrants. Previous international studies adopt either ethnic concentration or language as proxy for immigrants' network in host country. In this paper we introduce a new "spatial autoregressive network approach" to construct a dynamic network variable from micro-data to capture the effects of social and resource networks for immigrants. This approach allows each individual's self-employment decision to be geographically and ethnically correlated with that of other individuals. We further show that there are three advantages of this approach: it captures a more accurate effect of networks; it provides a better estimation of the impact of other socio-economic variables on self-employment; and it provides a better data fit. The empirical findings of this study strongly suggest that ethnic capital plays a vital role in relation to immigrants' self-employment decisions.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Journal: IZA Journal of Migration ; ISSN: 2193-9039 ; Volume: 3 ; Year: 2014 ; Pages: 1-24 ; Heidelberg: Springer

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Labor Demand ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers ; Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
• Subject: Ethnic capital ; Ethnic network ; Ethnic concentration ; Spatial approach ; Immigrant ; Self-employment

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Wang, Xingang ; Maani, Sholeh A.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Springer
• (where): Heidelberg
• (when): 2014

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.1186/s40176-014-0018-3
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/149418
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:47 AM CET