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Immigration, In-Migration, Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom

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Abstract

This paper develops and tests hypotheses concerning the effect of migrant status and ethnicity on propensity to engage in entrepreneurship (defined as new business activity) at the individual level in the UK. The hypotheses are tested using bivariate analysis (Pearson tests of independence) and multivariate analysis (binary logistic regression). Bivariate analysis suggests that new business activity varies with migrant status and ethnicity. Multivariate analysis suggests that migration increases the odds of engaging in new business activity, that the independent effect of ethnicity is marginal, and that being a recent ethnic minority migrant decreases the odds, after controlling for other individual level factors. At the regional level, a preliminary analysis suggests that gross migration flow has a higher correlation with new business activity than other commonly used regional demographic or economic development measures.

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Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank Colin Mason, Paul Reynolds, David Storey, and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments and suggestions, and the UK GEM team for supporting my work in this area and agreeing to the inclusion of additional questions in the UK GEM survey that made this study possible. This research was completed while the author was on sabbatical at IMD International.

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  1. Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, University of Strathclyde, Richmond Street, Glasgow, G1 1XH, UK

    Jonathan Levie

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Correspondence to Jonathan Levie.

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Levie, J. Immigration, In-Migration, Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom. Small Bus Econ 28, 143–169 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-006-9013-2

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