Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/20177 
Year of Publication: 
2003
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 940
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper focuses on the entrepreneurial endeavors of immigrants and natives in Germany. We pay closer attention to Turks, since they are the largest immigrant group with a strong entrepreneurial tradition, and the self-employed Turks in Germany represent about 70% of all Turkish entrepreneurs in the European Union. We identify the characteristics of the selfemployed individuals and understand their underlying drive into self-employment. At the same time we investigate how immigrant entrepreneurs fare in the labor market compared to natives. Employing data from the German Socioeconomic Panel 2000 release we find that the probability of self-employment increases significantly with age for all groups albeit at a decreasing rate. Among immigrants, Turks are twice as likely to choose self-employment as any other immigrant group. The age-earnings profiles of self-employed German and immigrant men are concave and surprisingly similarly shaped. While for self-employed German men hours of work and Treiman prestige scale scores increase their earnings, for self-employed immigrant men it is the longevity of the business that makes a difference. Everything else equal, the earnings of self-employed Turks are no different than the earnings of the self-employed Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, ex-Yugoslavs, Polish or other East Europeans, including those immigrants who have become German citizens.
Subjects: 
entrepreneurship
self-employment
occupational choice
immigrants
wage differentials
JEL: 
J23
J61
J31
M13
J24
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
364.7 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.