IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/ijsepp/v42y2015i1p82-96.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Segregation dimensions and development differentials of ethnic enclave

Author

Listed:
  • Steve Kwok-leung Chan

Abstract

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to employ enclave economy in the perspective of economic sociology to explain the existence and process of the Thai enclave in Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach - – In-depth interviews and case studies are employed in relation to Thai restaurant and grocery shop owners and employees in Hong Kong. Findings - – This study is an attempt to explain the clustering of Thai ethnic small businesses in Kowloon City through a discourse on the ethnic enclave economy. The Thai migrant enclave in Hong Kong is explored with dimensions of segregation, namely evenness, exposure, clustering, concentration and centralization (Massey and Denton’s, 1988). This study suggests that these Thai enclave businesses have two differentials compared to the findings of Zhou (1992) in Chinatown restaurants in New York. Social implications - – The findings provide evidences for social workers, migrant associations and policy makers in developing ideas of ethnic business enabling. There should be wide range of supporting and welfare policies for the empowerment of migrants and minority ethnic groups. An immigrant enclave should no longer be regarded as a ghetto for many business chances can be found there. Originality/value - – Two ethnic economy development differentials are developed. First, ethnicity similarity between the minority group and the majority ethnic enables ethnic business accessing earlier to an interethnic clientele from wider society. Second, internal factors of the ethnic enclave and external factors of the wider society have constrained the diversification of ethnic business.

Suggested Citation

  • Steve Kwok-leung Chan, 2015. "Segregation dimensions and development differentials of ethnic enclave," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 42(1), pages 82-96, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:eme:ijsepp:v:42:y:2015:i:1:p:82-96
    DOI: 10.1108/IJSE-06-2013-0144
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJSE-06-2013-0144/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJSE-06-2013-0144/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/IJSE-06-2013-0144?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pedro Spindler-Ruiz, 2021. "Mexican Niches in the US Construction Industry: 2009–2015," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 405-427, June.

    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:eme:ijsepp:v:42:y:2015:i:1:p:82-96. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.