Sociology 339F Immigration and Employment http:www'utoronto'caethnicstudiesSOC339'html

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Sociology 339FImmigration and Employmenthttp//
www.utoronto.ca/ethnicstudies/SOC339.html

• Instructor Prof. Jeffrey G. Reitz
• Department of Sociology
• Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies
• Munk Centre for International Studies
• University of Toronto
• Fall, 2007

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Sociology 339FImmigration and EmploymentSession
7 October 23Immigrant businesses and the
enclave economy

• Readings
• Peter S. Li, Economic returns of immigrants
  self-employment, Canadian Journal of Sociology
  25,1 (2000) 1-34.
• Eric Fong, Wenhong Chen and Chiu Luk, A
  Comparison of Ethnic Businesses in Suburbs and
  City, City Community 62 June 2007, pp.
  119-136.

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Part 3. Labour Market Segments, Ethnic
Communities and Social Capital
6. Ethnic occupations, work settings and social
networks October 16 7. Immigrant businesses and
the enclave economy October 23 8. Immigrants
and labour unions October 30 9. Immigrant
children and the second generation November
6 Test 2 in last half of session TA
jordan.thompson_at_utoronto.ca
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Todays Agenda

• Definitions
• Theories
• Research findings
• Implications and issues

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Little Italy, New York City, 1900
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Downtown Chinatown, Spadina
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Pacific Mall, Kennedy and Steeles
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• Kashner, Robert. 1997. Ethnic Toronto A Complete
  Guide to the Many Faces and Cultures of Toronto.
  Toronto Passport Books.

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Definitions

• Immigrant business and self-employment
• Ma and pa, Italian construction, Greek foods,
  Chinese malls
• Ethnic entrepreneurship
• Ethnic dimensions products, customers,
  employees, contractors
• Ethnic enclave economy
• Location ethnic neighborhood
• Underlying issue is immigrant self-employment a
  dead end or can it lead to success? What about
  enclave employment?

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Theories

• Assimilation Theory immigrant business as
  indicator of marginality
• Blocked Mobility (i.e., mainstream
  discrimination)
• Mobility Trap (Norbert Wiley 1967) some
  opportunity but long-term limits to immigrant
  business potential
• Middle-man Minority (Edna Bonacich 1974) East
  Indians in Africa, Jewish merchants advantage
  of middle-man role
• Ethnic resources vs. class resources (Ivan Light
  1972) key ethnic resources arise from ethnic
  dimensions (funding, employees, products,
  customers
• Enclave as primary labour market (Portes, 1978)
• Class relations within enclave (Sanders and Nee,
  1987)

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Impact of Ethnic Enclave

• Rate of Self-employment Earnings for
  Self-employed
• Rate of employment in enclave earnings for
  employees of co-ethnic entrepreneurs

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Rates of Ethnic Self-employment

• Rank order among men
• Jewish, Korean, Italian, German, Chinese,
  Majority Canadian, West Indian
• Rank order among women
• Jewish, German, Chinese, Italian, Majority
  Canadian, West Indian
• Reasons?

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Higher Earnings in Minority Self-employment?

• Survey question?
• Family contributions?
• Exclude professionals?
• Exclude businesses outside ethnic
  neighborhoods?
• Turnover?
• Net of human capital?
• Returns to human capital
• Comparison group? (other group members?
  mainstream population?)
• Include effect on employees? (Sanders and Nee)

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Conditions affecting Minority Business Success

• Minority population size
• Minority language population size
• Community age and stage of development
• Organization size (affects employees)

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Outcomes other than income?

• Satisfaction
• see Eric Fong
• Training effect
• see Roger Waldinger
• Community leaders
• see Alejandro Portes)

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Implications and Issues

• Is employment discrimination OK for ethnic
  businesses?
• Should government support ethnic business?
• Why so much interest in ethnic business?

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Sociology 339FImmigration and EmploymentNext
week Session 8 October 30Immigrants and
labour unions

• Readings
• Jeffrey G. Reitz and Anil Verma, "Immigration,
  Race, and Labor Unionization and Wages in the
  Canadian Labor Market," Industrial Relations 43,
  4 (October 2004) 835-54.
• Gerald Hunt and David Rayside, Labor Union
  Response to Diversity in Canada and the United
  States, Industrial Relations, 39, 3 2000, pp.
  401-417, 434-444.