Ethnic and Racial Self-Employment Differences and Possible Explanations

Robert Fairlie and Bruce Meyer

Journal of Human Resources, 1996, vol. 31, issue 4, 757-793

Abstract: We show that self-employment rates differ substantially across 60 ethnic and racial groups in the United States. These differences exist within broad combinations of groups such as Asians and Hispanics, and are almost as great after regression controls, including age, education, immigrant status, and time in the country. We then provide evidence on a number of theories of self-employment. An ethnic/racial group's self-employment rate is positively associated with the difference between average self-employment and wage/salary earnings for that group. Ethnic/racial groups that emigrate from countries with high self-employment rates do not have high self-employment rates in the United States. Finally, we find that the more advantaged ethnic/racial groups, measured by wage/salary earnings, self-employment earnings, and unearned income, and not the more disadvantaged groups, have the highest self-employment rates.

Date: 1996
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (267)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/146146
A subscription is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.

Related works:
Working Paper: Ethnic and Racial Self-Employment Differences and Possible Explanations (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uwp:jhriss:v:31:y:1996:i:4:p:757-793

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Human Resources from University of Wisconsin Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by (gunnison@wisc.edu).