Industrial Concentration of Ethnic Minority- and Women-Owned Businesses in the United States

Qingfang Wang

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: The number of ethnic minority and women-owned businesses has increased rapidly during the past few decades. However, the characteristics of these businesses and their owners differ by race, ethnicity, and gender. Using a confidential national survey of ethnic minority and women-owned businesses in the United States, this study examines ethnic minority- and women-owned businesses segmented by industrial sectors. Consistent with gender occupational segregation, male- and female- owned businesses have distinctive sectoral concentration patterns, with ethnic minority women- owned businesses highly concentrated in a limited number of industrial sectors. However, the relationship between business sectoral concentration and business performance is not uniform across ethnic and gender groups. Concentration in specific industrial sectors does not necessarily mean poor performance when measured by sales, size of employment or payrolls. However, for women-owned businesses, those sectors obviously pay less and have marginal profits, especially if considering the size of the firms.

Keywords: ethnic business; female entrepreneurship; labor market segmentation; gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2013-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-dem, nep-ent and nep-hme
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2013/CES-WP-13-34.pdf First version, 2013 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:13-34

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