How kinship resources alleviate structural disadvantage: self-employment duration among refugees and labor migrants

Abstract

Purpose Economic integration of refugees remains a challenge for developed countries. Although refugees differ greatly from labor migrants in available resources and motivation toward self-employment, prevailing studies on minority and ethnic entrepreneurship tend to lump these different categories of migrants together. Based on theories of migrants’ economic embeddedness, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the extent to which family- and kinship-based resources affect self-employment duration among refugees and labor migrants. Design/methodology/approach Based on Cox regression models, this longitudinal study estimates the self-employment duration of 10,519 refugees and 2,503 labor migrants starting businesses in Sweden in the period 2006–2012. Findings Results reveal that while refugees are at a disadvantage to labor migrants in terms of self-employment duration, their higher level of family embeddedness in part helps them overcome these disadvantages. For refugees but not for labor migrants, co-location in an ethnic enclave also lowers the risk of them becoming unemployed after a spell in entrepreneurship. Originality/value This original paper provides empirical and theoretical contributions to research on migrants’ self-employment success. It also discusses contributions for research on entrepreneurs’ social embeddedness and refugees’ entrepreneurship.

Do refugee inflows contribute to the host countries’ entrepreneurial rates? A dynamic panel data analysis, 2000–2019

“…As Zighan (2021) contends, refugee entrepreneurship faces many challenges and difficulties, mainly in terms of financing difficulties, cultural differences and a lack of business management skills, which inhibits the creation of new firms. Nevertheless, these hurdles are likely to be smaller for self-employment (Kazlou and Wennberg, 2021), which can, in part, explain the nonsignificant coefficients. In addition, given that refugee labor force might be a poor substitute, at least in the short run, for native labor force, as the human capital stocks of refugees are not immediately transferable to the host economy (Ceritoglu et al , 2017), total entrepreneurship rates might not be influenced by refugee inflows.…”

Guest editorial: Migrant entrepreneurship and the roles of family beyond place and space: towards a family resourcefulness across borders perspective

“…The first article, “How kinship resources alleviate structural disadvantage: self-employment duration among refugees and labour migrants” by Kazlou and Wennberg (2021) explores how kinship resources alleviate structural disadvantages among refugees and labour migrants in the context of Sweden, using longitudinal data of self-employment in the period between 2006 and 2012. The authors show that in comparison to labour migrant groups, refugees are at a disadvantage in self-employment duration.…”

Swedish migration policy liberalization and new immigrant entrepreneurs

“…We define entrepreneurs based on information provided by SCB as both incorporated business and unincorporated self-employed people (e.g. Kazlou & Wennberg, 2021).…”

“…To accomplish this, we extended Although similar in spirit to prior measures of social capital (e.g. Kazlou & Wennberg, 2021), the neighbourhood indexes developed herein are able to compare the importance of access to resources through general social networks with co-ethnic social networks.…”