IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp54.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor Market Assimilation and the Self-Employment Decision of Immigrant Entrepreneurs

Author

Listed:
  • Lofstrom, Magnus

    (Public Policy Institute of California)

Abstract

This paper uses data from the 1980 and 1990 U.S. Censuses to study labor market assimilation of self-employed immigrants. Separate earnings functions for the self-employed and wage/salary workers are estimated. To control for endogenous sorting into the sectors, models of the self-employment decision are estimated. Variables for the proportion of immigrants in the population and average earnings ratios are used as instruments to control for self-selection into self-employment and consequently identify the inverse Mills correction term in the earnings models. Self-employed immigrants do substantially better in the labor market than wage/salary immigrants. Earnings of self-employed immigrants are predicted to converge with natives’ wage/salary earnings at about age 30 and natives’ self-employed earnings at about age 40. Including the self-employed in the sample reduces the immigrant-native earnings gap by, on average, roughly 14 percent.

Suggested Citation

  • Lofstrom, Magnus, 1999. "Labor Market Assimilation and the Self-Employment Decision of Immigrant Entrepreneurs," IZA Discussion Papers 54, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp54
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp54.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert W. Fairlie & Bruce D. Meyer, 1996. "Ethnic and Racial Self-Employment Differences and Possible Explanations," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(4), pages 757-793.
    2. Julian R. Betts & Magnus Lofstrom, 2000. "The Educational Attainment of Immigrants: Trends and Implications," NBER Chapters, in: Issues in the Economics of Immigration, pages 51-116, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Chiswick, Barry R, 1978. "The Effect of Americanization on the Earnings of Foreign-born Men," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(5), pages 897-921, October.
    4. George J. Borjas, 2021. "Assimilation, Changes in Cohort Quality, and the Earnings of Immigrants," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 2, pages 3-29, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Andrew M. Yuengert, 1995. "Testing Hypotheses of Immigrant Self-Employment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 30(1), pages 194-204.
    6. Borjas, George J & Bronars, Stephen G, 1989. "Consumer Discrimination and Self-employment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 581-605, June.
    7. Carliner, Geoffrey, 1980. "Wages, Earnings and Hours of First, Second, and Third Generation American Males," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 18(1), pages 87-102, January.
    8. George J. Borjas, 2021. "Self-Selection and the Earnings of Immigrants," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 4, pages 69-91, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. George J. Borjas, 1994. "The Economics of Immigration," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1667-1717, December.
    10. Borjas, George J & Bronars, Stephen G, 1991. "Immigration and the Family," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(2), pages 123-148, April.
    11. George J. Borjas, 1986. "The Self-Employment Experience of Immigrants," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 21(4), pages 485-506.
    12. Robert W. Fairlie & Bruce D. Meyer, 1994. "The Ethnic and Racial Character of Self-Employment," NBER Working Papers 4791, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lofstrom, Magnus, 2000. "Self-Employment and Earnings among High-Skilled Immigrants in the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 175, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Marcén, Miriam, 2013. "The effect of culture on self-employment," MPRA Paper 47338, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Marcén, Miriam, 2014. "The role of culture on self-employment," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 44(S1), pages 20-32.
    4. Kar, Saibal, 2009. "International labor migration, asymmetric information and occupational choice," MPRA Paper 24106, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Hamid Beladi & Saibal Kar, 2015. "Skilled and Unskilled Immigrants and Entrepreneurship in a Developed Country," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 666-682, August.
    6. Smolny, Werner & Rieber, Alexander, 2016. "Labour market integration of immigrants - Evidence for the German guest workers," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145629, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Sloane, Peter J. & Gazioglu, Saziye, 1996. "Immigration and occupational status: A study of Bangladeshi and Turkish fathers and sons in the London labour market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 399-424, December.
    8. Marianna Brunetti & Anzelika Zaiceva, 2023. "Is Self-Employment for Migrants? Evidence from Italy," CEIS Research Paper 563, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 31 Jul 2023.
    9. Jens Ruhose, 2015. "Microeconometric Analyses on Economic Consequences of Selective Migration," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 61.
    10. Emma Neuman, 2021. "Performance and job creation among self-employed immigrants and natives in Sweden," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 403-425, January.
    11. Sebastian Gundel & Heiko Peters, "undated". "Assimilation and Cohort Effects for German Immigrants," Working Papers 200123, Institute of Spatial and Housing Economics, Munster Universitary.
    12. Kar, Saibal & Saha, Bibhas, 2011. "Asymmetric Information in the Labor Market, Immigrants and Contract Menu," IZA Discussion Papers 5508, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Robert W. Fairlie & Bruce D. Meyer, 2003. "The Effect of Immigration on Native Self-Employment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(3), pages 619-650, July.
    14. Berman, Eli & Lang, Kevin & Siniver, Erez, 2003. "Language-skill complementarity: returns to immigrant language acquisition," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 265-290, June.
    15. Robert W. Fairlie & Alicia M. Robb, 2008. "Race and Entrepreneurial Success: Black-, Asian-, and White-Owned Businesses in the United States," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026206281x, December.
    16. Ruth Oyelere & Willie Belton, 2013. "Black–White gap in self-employment. Does intra-race heterogeneity exist?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 25-39, June.
    17. Mar, Don, 2005. "Individual characteristics vs. city structural characteristics: explaining self-employment differences among Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos in the United States," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 341-359, May.
    18. Brunetti, Marianna & Zaiceva, Anzelika, 2023. "Is Self-Employment for Migrants? Evidence from Italy," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1313, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    19. Brunetti, Marianna & Zaiceva, Anzelika, 2023. "Is Self-Employment for Migrants? Evidence from Italy," IZA Discussion Papers 16314, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Kleinhempel, Johannes & Klasing, Mariko & Beugelsdijk, Sjoerd, 2022. "Cultural Roots of Entrepreneurship," MPRA Paper 115942, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    self-employment; assimilation; Immigration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp54. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.