Immigrant Self-Employment: Does Intermarriage Matter?

Dimitris Georgarakos and Konstantinos Tatsiramos

No 4350, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper investigates the effect of a native spouse on the transitions into and out of entrepreneurship of male immigrants in the U.S. We find that those married to a native are less likely to start up a business compared to those married to an immigrant. This finding is robust when the endogeneity of being married to a native is taken into account. We also show that immigrants married to a native are significantly less likely to exit from entrepreneurship compared to their counterparts who are married to an immigrant. Our results point to an interesting asymmetric role of being intermarried in deciding to become an entrepreneur and for survival in entrepreneurship, which is consistent with a network effect. On the one hand, intermarriage reduces the chance of starting up a business possibly because better access to local networks can help transitions into other forms of employment (e.g. paid employment). On the other hand, superior access to local networks through marriage to a native spouse facilitates business survival.

Keywords: business ownership; migration; native spouse; social networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J15 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2009-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-mig, nep-sbm and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Published - published in: Research in Labor Economics, 2009, 29, 253-271

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Chapter: Immigrant self-employment: does intermarriage matter? (2009)
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