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. Self-employed immigrants are found to 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, 14%.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Aldrich HE, Waldinger R (1990) Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship. Annual Review of Sociology 16:111–35
Betts JR, Lofstrom M (2000) The Educational Attainment of Immigrants: Trends and Implications. In: Borjas GJ (ed) Issues in the Economics of Immigration. University of Chicago Press
Borjas GJ (1985) Assimilation Changes in Cohort Quality and the Earnings of Immigrants. Journal of Labor Economics 4:463–89
Borjas GJ (1986) The Self-Employment Experience of Immigrants. Journal of Human Resources 21:485–506
Borjas GJ (1987) Self-Selection and the earnings of Immigrants. The American Economic Review 4:531–53
Borjas GJ (1994) The Economics of Immigration. Journal of Economic Literature 32:1667–717
Borjas GJ (1995) Assimilation Changes in Cohort Quality Revisited: What Happened to Immigrant Earnings in the 1980’s? Journal of Labor Economics 2:201–45
Borjas GJ (2000) The Economic Progress of Immigrants. In: Borjas GJ (ed) Issues in the Economics of Immigration. University of Chicago Press
Bregger JE (1996) Measuring Self-employment in the United States. Monthly Labor Review: 3–9
Carliner G (1980) Wages, Earnings and Hours of First, Second, and Third Generation American Males. Economic Inquiry 1:87–102
Chiswick BR (1978) The Effect of Americanization on the Earnings of Foreign-born Men. Journal of Political Economy 5:897–921
Cummings S (1980) Self-Help in Urban America: Patterns of Minority Business Enterprise. Kenikart Press, New York
Duleep HO, Regets MC (1999) Immigrants and Human-Capital Investments. American Economic Review 82:186–191
Fairlie RW, Meyer BD (1996) Ethnic and Racial Self-Employment Differences and Possible Explanations. Journal of Human Resources 31:757–93
Light I (1984) Immigrant and Ethnic Enterprise in North America. Ethnic and Racial Studies 7:195–216
Yuengert AM (1995) Testing Hypotheses of Immigrant Self-Employment. Journal of Human Resources 30:194–204
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lofstrom, M. (2004). Labor market assimilation and the self-employment decision of immigrant entrepreneurs. In: Zimmermann, K.F., Constant, A. (eds) How Labor Migrants Fare. Population Economics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24753-1_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24753-1_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-53448-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-24753-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive