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Refugee entrepreneurship in Belgium: Potential and practice

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Abstract

By promoting refugee entrepreneurship, both the integration of refugees in society can be aided and domestic entrepreneurship can be boosted. Refugee entrepreneurship has been an underdeveloped domain of scientific research though. There clearly exists a potential for refugee entrepreneurship in Belgium, but this is too seldom realized in practice. Male refugees who have been self-employed in the past and whose family is active as an entrepreneur have a higher appetite for entrepreneurship. Refugee entrepreneurs are mostly male, in their thirties and forties and active in ‘inferior’ sectors. It was also found that refugee entrepreneurs earn less than other entrepreneurs.

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Acknowledgments

This research is part of the Rainbow economy project, which is funded by the Equal Program of the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Flemish Community Commission of the Brussels Capital Region. The Federal Impulse Fund for Immigrant Policy provided financial aid.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Centre for Entrepreneurship, European University College Brussels (EHSAL) and Catholic University of Brussels (KU Brussel), Stormstraat 2, 1000, Brussels, Belgium

    Bram Wauters & Johan Lambrecht

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  1. Bram Wauters
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  2. Johan Lambrecht
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Correspondence to Bram Wauters.

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Wauters, B., Lambrecht, J. Refugee entrepreneurship in Belgium: Potential and practice. Int Entrep Manag J 2, 509–525 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-006-0008-x

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