Frank A.G. den Butter () (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Enno Masurel () (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Robert Mosch () (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Additional information is available for the following
registered author(s):
Co-ethnic employment refers to the stylised fact of many labour markets that there is an over-representation of workers of the same ethnic group within firms. This paper presents empirical proof of the phenomenon and analyses the incentives for employees to work in co-ethnic firms. It argues that strong social networks and related high intra-group trust constitute the major reasons for co-ethnic employment by lowering information and co-ordination costs. In the short run, co-ethnic employment leads to more jobs for employees, easy access to labour for ethnic minority firms, strengthening of the group values and norms, and less unemployment and social security problems for society. In the long run, co-ethnic employment might form an obstacle to the social and economic emancipation of ethnic minority groups. It generates disincentives for individual group members to acquire general skills, hinders the development of ethnic minority firms, fosters the danger! of the ethnic trap and stimulates the emergence of an enclave economy.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Find related papers by JEL classification: J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Social Norms and Social Capital; Social Networks Economic Anthropology
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: