Ethnic Enclaves and Self-employment among Middle Eastern Immigrants in Sweden – Ethnic Capital or Enclave Size?

We employ geocoded data to explore the effects of ethnic enclaves in Swedishcities on the propensity of Middle Eastern immigrants to use businessownership as a vehicle to transcend from labor market outsiders to insiders. Wedemonstrate a robust tendency for immigrants to leave non-employment forself-employment if many co-ethnic peers in the enclave are business owners,while we observe weak effects emanating from business owners in othergroups. Net of these effects, overall enclave size, measured by the localconcentration of co-ethnic peers, has a negative influence on the propensity foran outsider to become self-employed