Ethnic penalties in male self-employment: some evidence from the Italian case

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA DEL LAVORO
Author/s Ivana Fellini
Publishing Year 2023 Issue 2023/166 Language Italian
Pages 26 P. 102-127 File size 291 KB
DOI 10.3280/SL2023-166005
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Differently from many older migration countries, in Italy immigrants are disadvantaged in the access to self-employment when compared to natives. To understand this outcome, the high rate of native self-employment and the role that self-employment has traditionally played for low-educated workers has to be considered. Following the ethnic penalty literature, the article compares male native and immigrant self-employment probabilities and discusses the role of education, years since migration and the country of origin. All three variables are rele-vant in the frame of ever-lower chances to be self-employed for immi-grants. Education and years since migration seem to suggest a positive selection of immigrant self-employed. Differences by origin seem re-lated to the ethnic penalization in the labour market of the different groups. Once again, the Italian case proves interesting to confront with traditional hypotheses on immigrants’ economic incorporation.

Keywords: migration, self-employment, ethnic penalty, Italy

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Ivana Fellini, Penalizzazione etnica e occupazione indipendente: alcune evidenze sul caso italiano in "SOCIOLOGIA DEL LAVORO " 166/2023, pp 102-127, DOI: 10.3280/SL2023-166005