Low-skilled immigrant entrepreneurship

More than ? of the foreign born workforce in the US have no schooling beyond high school and about 20% of the low-skilled workforce are immigrants. More than 10% of these low-skilled immigrants are self-employed. Utilizing longitudinal data from the 1996, 2001 and 2004 Survey of Income and Program Participation panels, this paper analyzes the returns to self-employment among low-skilled immigrants. We find that the returns to low-skilled self-employment among immigrants is higher than it is among natives but also that wage/salary employment is a more financially rewarding option for most low-skilled immigrants. In analyses of earnings differences, we find that most of the 20% male native-immigrant earnings gap among low-skilled business owners can be explained primarily by differences in the ethnic composition. Low-skilled female foreign born entrepreneurs are found to have earnings roughly equal to otherwise observationally similar self-employed native born women.     

Self-employed immigrants and their employees: evidence from Swedish employer-employee data

We present a study of the employees of self-employed immigrants with unincorporated firms in Sweden using matched employer-employee data from 2014. Non-European immigrants are more likely than natives to have employees in their firms. Furthermore, immigrants, especially non-European immigrants, are more likely than natives to employ immigrants in their firms, and non-European immigrants are most likely to employ recently arrived non-European immigrants with low education in their firms. Males are more likely than females to have employees in their firms, but self-employed females are more likely than self-employed males to have female employees. This is the case for all immigrant groups as well as for natives. We conclude that self-employed immigrants play a role in the labour market integration process since they create employment opportunities for immigrant groups that have difficulty entering the labour market.

     

Exits from Self-Employment: Is There a Native-Immigrant Difference in Sweden?1

It is well established that non-western immigrants in Sweden are more likely to be self-employed than natives. Whether there is also a difference in the exit rate out of self-employment remains an unexplored question. Using panel data for the period 1998–2002, this study analyzes the exit rates by looking at all exits, and also at exits to different labor market states. We find that the exit rate is about 7% points higher among non-western immigrants than among natives and exits to unemployment is 14% points higher. Decomposing these differences, we find that differences in industry and earlier labor market status are important explanatory factors.     

Self-employment and earnings among immigrants in Australia

This article contributes to the small Australian literature on the earnings of immigrants in the self-employment sector. Earnings functions for both the foreign-born and Australian-born are estimated, and the results show that compared with native-born workers, foreign-born workers have higher earnings in the wage/salary sector but lower earnings in the self-employment sector.
Among the foreign-born, the results suggest that self-employed immigrants are less skilled compared with those who are wage/salary employed. Thus, low-skilled immigrants may be forced into self-employment.
There is no evidence of immigrant "catch-up" in the self-employment sector. Among wage/salary workers, however, immigrant wages are characterized by a "catch-up" effect.     

Self-employment and family life: constructing work–life balance when you're ‘always on’

This study explores how men and women who are self-employed and have children living at home construct work–life balance. Guided by the concept of work–life fit, in-depth interviews were conducted with 22 parents who were self-employed and had at least one dependent child. Using thematic analysis, the first theme, ‘in control,’ related primarily to schedule flexibility but also extended to income opportunities and, sometimes, to job security. Feelings of control were experienced and expressed in relation to shortcomings of previous job experiences, business location, and preferences for raising children. The second theme, ‘always on,’ meant that parents expected to be both readily accessible to children and available to clients, while continually pursuing income opportunities. This contributed to time pressure, although some viewed participation in volunteer and children's activities as a form of business networking. Work–life balance was described in terms of time, activity, or experience. Most participants believed self-employment contributes positively, but some questioned whether work–life balance is possible. Parents mostly followed traditional gender role patterns. Some fathers resisted this arrangement and saw self-employment as a way to participate more actively in family life. Implications and directions for further research are discussed.     

The Receipt of Transfer Payments by Immigrants in Sweden

Using the native-born as a benchmark, this article examines the reliance of immigrants on Sweden's social safety net. Both in the raw data, and after conditioning on a number of explanatory variables, we find that there are differences between immigrants and natives regarding participation in the Swedish income security system. We also find that there are differences in this respect between immigrants from different regions as well as between more recent and earlier cohorts of immigrants. As regards unemployment insurance benefits and cash labour market assistance, no clear pattern can be discerned in the results. In the case of early retirement pension and social assistance, however, the picture looks different. Immigrants arriving at an early date from typical labour immigration regions are over-represented in early retirement. Immigrants, especially non-European immigrants with a recent date of arrival, are over-represented among recipients of social assistance. The overall conclusion is that the immigrants' total rate of participation in the income security system is determined by their rate of unemployment and their state of health. On the other hand, the distribution of their participation among the different components of the income security system is highly dependent on their length of residence in Sweden and where they come from.     

The Native‐Immigrant Income Gap among the Self‐Employed in Sweden

During recent years we have observed that non‐western immigrants are overrepresented among the self‐employed in Sweden. A reason for this might be the difficulties faced by immigrants in the labour market. The unemployment rate among non‐western immigrants in Sweden is higher than among natives with similar human capital characteristics. While this is a well‐established result, we do not know much about how self‐employed immigrants perform economically compared to their native counterparts. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the incomes of self‐employed immigrants and natives in Sweden. We will also discuss possible explanations for the income gap we find. We use Swedish register data for the period 1998 to 2002 and the population studied consists of individuals who have been continuously self‐employed during this period. By performing the analysis on this group of self‐employed we get a measure of the difference among the long‐term self‐employed. The outcome of interest is the average income over the period. Income regressions are estimated using both OLS and quantile regressions. We find that self‐employed immigrants receive significantly lower incomes than their native counterparts when controlling for individual characteristics, industry and start‐up year of the firm. The income gap is larger for non‐western immigrants than for western immigrants. Quantile regressions show that the native‐immigrant income gap is smaller at the top than at the bottom of the income distribution. Several possible explanations for the native‐immigrant income gap are discussed. One possible explanation is that immigrants have a lower reservation wage and accepts staying in business receiving a lower income than comparable natives. Another explanation might be that there is discrimination against self‐employed immigrants that will lead to lower incomes. There can be consumer discrimination or discrimination from banks and real estate owners.     

Are mothers of young children more likely to be self-employed? The case of Sweden

Previous studies, mostly from Anglo-Saxon countries, find a positive correlation between the presence of young children in the household and self-employment probabilities among women. This has been seen as an indication of women with young children choosing self-employment as a way of balancing work and family commitments. This paper studies the relationship between children and female self-employment in a country with family friendly policies and a generous welfare system: Sweden. The initial hypothesis is that we will not find evidence of a positive effect of children on self-employment among Swedish women since there are other institutions in place aiming at facilitating the combination of work and family. Using Swedish register data for the period 2004–2008 we do, however, find that the presence of young children increases the probability of choosing self-employment also among Swedish women. The effect is strongest for women with very young children, 0–3 years of age. These results also hold in a panel data model that takes individual unobserved heterogeneity into account. We also analyze time-use data and find, contrary to what has been found in many other countries, that self-employed women spend more, or as much, time on market work than wage-earning women. This raises doubts about whether women in Sweden chose self-employment as a way of balancing work and family commitments.     

Female self-employment and demand for flexible, nonstandard work schedules

Motivated by the rising importance of female self-employment, this article develops and estimates a two-step empirical model to explain why married women choose self-employment over wage-salary employment. The article also develops a bounded influence regression model to estimate self-employment wage equations. In sum, a woman is more likely to choose self-employment the greater her relative earnings potential as self-employed, the greater her demand for flexibility, the greater her demand for a nonstandard work week, and if her husband has health insurance. The increase in women's earnings potential as self-employed explains most of the increase in their self-employment from 1979 to 1990.     

The male/female earnings gap and female self-employment

This paper examines the gender differences in the choice to become self-employed. Of particular interest is the relationship between the male/female earnings gap in wage and self-employment, and the male/female differences in the average predicted probability of self-employment. It has been argued that earnings inequality in wage-employment lead women to choose self-employment. However, it may be the case that inequality in the form of consumer discrimination causes an earnings gap between males and females in self-employment. If inequality is higher in self-employment than in wage-employment, then there would be females in wage-employment who would be in self-employment in the absence of inequality in both sectors.     

Immigrants’ Returns to Schooling in Sweden

The aim of this paper is to find out if the returns to immigrants’ schooling are lower than the returns to natives’ schooling. In addition the paper tries to establish whether immigrants who invest in different amounts of Swedish education also differ in their returns to schooling. For immigrants arriving in Sweden as adults, the returns to schooling are on average one log point lower than for natives. The results show that returns to schooling are considerably higher for immigrants who arrived in Sweden during compulsory school age than for immigrants who arrived in Sweden after compulsory school age. Moreover, immigrants who complete their schooling in Sweden show, in general, much higher returns than immigrants with only foreign schooling.     

The Development of Parent–Child Relationship Perceptions in Boys from Childhood to Adolescence: A Comparison Between Disruptive and Non-Disruptive Boys

The absence or weakness of the father role is considered by many authors as one of the principal explaining factors of disruptive behavior and other psychopathologies among children. However, empirical studies on the specific role of the father are rare. Boys with stable disruptive behavior from age 5 until age 15 were compared to boys who have never been disruptive during the same time period. The perceptions that boys have regarding their relationships with their fathers from childhood to adolescence was compared to, perceptions concerning their relationships with their mothers. The results indicate that boys from both groups generally feel less loved and less appreciated by their fathers than by their mothers in adolescence but not in childhood. The boys perceived that their two parents love and appreciate them a lot less at age 15, than at age 9 and age 11. They felt less loved and appreciated by their fathers than their mothers. At age 15, disruptive boys considered they were less loved by their two parents than non-disruptive boys did. The differences in the perceptions by the boys concerning the quality of relationships with their parents appear during adolescence.     

Self‐Selection and Economic Assimilation of Immigrants: The Case of Iranian Immigrants Arriving to Three Countries During 1979–1985

The study is designed to evaluate the impact of the interaction between patterns of immigrants' self‐selection and the context of reception at destinations on economic assimilation of Iranian immigrants who came to three countries during 1979–1985. For that purpose, we studied immigrants at the age of 22 or higher upon arrival by utilizing the 5 percent 1990 and 2000 Public Use Microdata files (PUMS) of the United States census, the 20 percent demographic samples of the 1983 and 1995 Israeli censuses of population, and the 1990 and 2000 Swedish registers. The results indicate that the “most qualified” immigrants – both on observed and unobserved variables – who left Iran right after the Islamic revolution, arrived in the US Their positive self‐selection led them to reach complete earnings assimilation with natives there. Iranian immigrants who arrived in Israel and Sweden did not achieve full earnings assimilation with natives. Of these two groups, a smaller immigrant‐to‐native gap in average earnings was found in Sweden, but in the same time Iranian immigrants in Israel were more positively self‐selected and showed better assimilation than their counterparts in Sweden. Market structure played a certain role in immigrants' earnings assimilation mainly in Sweden.     

Trait Mindfulness and Anger in the Family: A Dyadic Analysis of Male Service Members and their Female Partners

Anger-related problems have been documented among post-deployed service members who returned home, posing risks to their well-being and increasing distress in their families. Trait mindfulness (acting with awareness, nonjudging, and nonreactivity) has been associated with lower self-reported anger. Using actor–partner interdependence models, we tested the association between trait mindfulness and parental anger observed in parent–child and couple interactions. The sample consisted of 155 dyads of male National Guard/Reserve members who had been recently deployed and returned, and their female non-deployed partners. Results showed that fathers’ and mothers’ nonreactivity was negatively associated with their own observed anger, indicating that parents who reported higher nonreactivity exhibited lower anger. Mothers’ nonreactivity was also negatively associated with observed fathers’ anger in the same family such that fathers exhibited lower anger when their female partner reported higher nonreactivity. Nonreactivity facilitates emotion regulation and its cultivation may reduce anger in post-deployed military families.     

Immigration,labor force integration and the pursuit of self-employment

A correspondence analysis was used to examine the entire working life cycle of Canadian-born male age-education cohorts and immigrant male age-education cohorts who arrived during 1945-61. Data were drawn from the 1961 and 1971 census databases as well as the 1981 and 1991 public individual files. Findings support the existence of a split labor market based on immigrant status, particularly at the low end of the schooling spectrum. In 1961, immigrants with low levels of schooling were closely associated with the wage construction sector, whereas Canadian-born males below the high school level would most likely gravitate towards consumer services. Meanwhile, immigrants with a high school education were likely to be in consumer services; whereas, Canadian-born males with a high school education were closely aligned with public administration and distributive services. Moreover, immigrants with higher levels of schooling were less likely to work in ethnically dominated markets, while immigrants with low schooling moved into the self-employed construction sector. The existence of a split in the labor market was evident among workers with lower levels of schooling compared with university-educated workers.     

Palestinian and Jewish Israeli-born immigrants in the United States

"This article considers both Arab and Jewish emigration from Israel to the United States, relying on the 5 percent Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) of the 1980 U.S. census. Using the ancestry and language questions to identify Jews and Arabs, we found that over 30 percent of Israeli-born Americans are Palestinian-Arab natives of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip. While the Jews are of higher educational levels, hold better jobs and enjoy higher incomes than their Arab counterparts, both groups have relatively high socioeconomic characteristics. Both have high rates of self-employment, particularly the Palestinian-Arabs, who appear to serve as middlemen minority in the grocery store business in the cities where they reside. The fact that nearly a third of Israeli-born immigrants are Arabs accounts for the occupational diversity previously observed of Israelis in America but does not account for their income diversity as much as does differences between early and recent immigrants."     

Using child welfare assessments and latent class analysis to identify prevalence and comorbidity of parent service needs

Data collected through Illinois's Integrated Assessment (IA) program—an assessment and service coordination program incorporating clinical assessments of both parents following a child's placement in foster care—offers a unique opportunity to examine the service needs of parents within a family context. Between January 2007 and June 2010, integrated assessments were completed with 4089 families in which at least one parent participated in the assessment. Utilizing these data, this study employs a Latent Class Analysis approach to identify the patterns of service needs of parents with children entering foster care. Latent class models were generated for mothers and fathers who participated in comprehensive family assessments based on identified service needs. Models revealed “low need” and “high need” classes among both mothers and fathers. A distinct class characterized by substance abuse needs emerged among fathers and a similar class among mothers was characterized by both substance abuse and mental health needs. A mental health needs class was identified among fathers while a similar class among mothers was characterized by both mental health needs as well as trauma symptoms. In examining the distribution of classes among families where both parents were present, the largest groups of families were those in which both parents fell into the “low need” classes, those in which the father fell into the “low need” class and the mother fell into the “substance abuse and mental health” class, and those in which both the mother and the father fell into the “substance abuse” classes. Implications for case assignment practices, father engagement, and addressing comorbid service needs are discussed.     

Self-employment,earnings, and sexual orientation

Although many studies document differences by sexual orientation in earnings and other labor-market outcomes, little is known about differences in self-employment. Our study contributes to both the self-employment literature and sexual-orientation literature by analyzing differences in self-employment rates and earnings by sexual orientation. Gay men are less likely to be self-employed than married men, whereas lesbians are equally likely to be self-employed as married women. We find that gay men earn less than married men. We do find, however, that for those gay men who are self-employed, there is little evidence of a further earnings penalty, at least among full-time workers. Lesbians earn at least as much as married women, but receive no further earnings premium—or penalty—by being self-employed, again among full-time workers.     

Host National Identification of Immigrants in the Netherlands

This study examines immigrants' identification with the host country. We use survey data of more than 1,700 Turkish and Moroccan immigrants and more than 2,200 natives in the Netherlands. We answer four main questions in this study. First, do immigrants have lower national identification than natives? Second, does the level of national identification differ between immigrant groups? Third, do economic and social integration similarly affect national identification among immigrants and natives? And fourth, what are important additional determinants of national identification among immigrants? The results show that, compared to Dutch natives, Turkish but not Moroccan immigrants have lower national identification. Being employed and socially integrated is associated with higher national identification among immigrants as well as natives, but only among immigrants is higher occupational status associated with higher national identification. For immigrants, Dutch language proficiency, perceived discrimination, and contact with natives proved to be important conditions for national identification.