Choice or necessity: do immigrants and their children choose self-employment for the same reasons?

Teresa Abada, Feng Hou and Yuqian Lu
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Teresa Abada: University of Western Ontario, Canada
Feng Hou: Statistics Canada, Canada
Yuqian Lu: Statistics Canada, Canada

Work, Employment & Society, 2014, vol. 28, issue 1, 78-94

Abstract: Using a generational cohort method and the 1981 and 2006 Canadian Census 20 per cent sample files, this study examines whether the effects of three important determinants of self-employment – expected earnings differentials between paid and self-employment, difficulties in the labour market, and ethnic enclave – differ between immigrants and non-immigrants. Unemployment had a stronger push effect on self-employment among immigrant fathers than among Canadian-born fathers. Expected earnings differential had a stronger effect among Canadian-born fathers than among immigrant fathers. Sons of both immigrants and the Canadian-born were more strongly affected by expected earnings differentials than were their fathers, while unemployment was not a significant factor for them. Ethnic enclave was not positively associated with the self-employment rates among both immigrants and their children.

Keywords: children of immigrants; earnings; ethnic enclave; immigrants’ self-employment; labour market; second generation; unemployment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:28:y:2014:i:1:p:78-94

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