Back to Search
Start Over
Linking Self-Employment Before and After Migration: Migrant Selection and Human Capital
- Source :
- Sociological Science, Vol 6, Iss 23, Pp 609-634 (2019)
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Society for Sociological Science, 2019.
-
Abstract
- In linking self-employment before and after migration, the often-cited home-country self-employment hypothesis states that immigrants who come from countries with large self-employment sectors are themselves more likely to have been self-employed and hence have a higher propensity for self-employment in their destination country. Using Swedish data, this study shows that the first part of the hypothesis, that origin-country average rates of self-employment can be used to approximate individual experience, is false; but the second part, the connection between self-employment before and after migration, is true if the measurement is done on the individual level. Migrants who have been self-employed before migration accumulate entrepreneurial human capital, making future self-employment a more desirable labor market alternative vis-à-vis wage employment. But because of migrant selection, this association cannot be captured by aggregate measures, and this is the reason why the home-country self-employment hypothesis, although intuitive, has underperformed in previous empirical tests.
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 23306696
- Volume :
- 6
- Issue :
- 23
- Database :
- Directory of Open Access Journals
- Journal :
- Sociological Science
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- edsdoj.2dea1c3d335641c4a4ea3d75cd31e865
- Document Type :
- article
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.15195/v6.a23