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Disadvantage, Ethnic Niching or Pursuit of a Vision?

Motives of Immigrant Women Care Entrepreneurs in the Ageing Swedish Society

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Abstract

As immigrant groups grow older, host societies are faced with new challenges of integration. In a labor market that is structured by ethnicity and gender, the demand for culturally competent care provides immigrant women with the opportunity to become entrepreneurs within the care sector. This article analyzes 20 in-depth interviews with immigrant women from 13 countries who are entrepreneurs in home-help services for elderly people. The article analyzes the complex motives behind the women’s entrepreneurship. Ethnic entrepreneurship has mainly been approached as a way for immigrants to survive in the labor market—the disadvantage theory—or as a means to create job opportunities for co-ethnics within ethnic economies. Opposed to this, three main motives appear in the analysis: first, the processes of ethnic and gender sorting in the care sector; second, ethnic strategies in the labor market; and third, the wish to gain independence and improve the quality of care. Only in a few cases is ethnic entrepreneurship practiced within ethnic economies; instead, it is mainly found within cross-cultural economies, consisting of employees and customers of mixed origin who are embedded in a majority society. The women construct their ethnic identities to compete in the segmented Swedish labor market by creating ethnic identities of care that are adjusted to meet the needs of their customers in a cross-cultural society.

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Notes

  1. The county councils (21)—on the regional level—and the municipalities (290)—on the local level—are the main political and administrative units in Sweden responsible for the provision of welfare, health care, and care of their citizens. The county councils and municipalities respectively have the right to levy tax to provide welfare and, in addition, receive grants from the national government and patient fees to cover the expenses. Home-help services for the elderly, which are the focus of this study, are the responsibility of the municipalities.

  2. One woman was a “second-generation immigrant”, thus born in Sweden but with both parents born in Turkey.

  3. In theory, customers and employees could also be native-born Swedes. However, this is not emphasized in the interviews with the cross-cultural entrepreneurs.

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Acknowledgments

This project was financed by VINNOVA (The Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems) and was performed within the research program DYNAMO 2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden

    Charlotta Hedberg

  2. Nordregio, Stockholm, Sweden

    Katarina Pettersson

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  1. Charlotta Hedberg
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Correspondence to Charlotta Hedberg.

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Hedberg, C., Pettersson, K. Disadvantage, Ethnic Niching or Pursuit of a Vision?. Int. Migration & Integration 13, 423–440 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-011-0217-1

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