Abstract
Using the sample of Taiwanese female self-employed workers from the Taiwan Women and Family Survey (TWFS) conducted in 1989, this article explores neighborhood social networks and female self-employment earnings. The evidence from linear regression and endogenous treatment effect models suggests that an individual’s past provision of personalized assistance to adjacent neighbors significantly increases current self-employment earnings, with corrections for self-selection into network participation. An individual’s past voluntary contributions to community organizational activities also significantly increase current earnings, both with and without corrections for self-selection. However, there are negative self-selections into both cooperative neighborhood networks and community organizational activities in the sense that female self-employed workers with high earnings capacity are less likely to choose to participate in these types of social networks.
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Acknowledgements
This research is supported by a grant from the 21st Century Center of Excellence Program at Hitotsubashi University for research on the topic “Normative Evaluations and Social Choice of Contemporary Economic Systems.” I am deeply indebted to my doctoral dissertation advisers, Shinkichi Taniguchi and Hiroyuki Okamuro, for their advice and guidance. I am grateful to Ming-Wen Hu, Noriyuki Doi, and the audience at the 2007 International Council for Small Business World Conference, held at the Turku School of Economics, for their helpful comments.
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Tsuchiya, R. Neighborhood social networks and female self-employment earnings in Taiwan. Int Entrep Manag J 6, 143–161 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-010-0143-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-010-0143-2