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Migrant, Woman and Business Owner: a Heterogeneous Group with Diverse Needs Karen Haandrikman and Natasha A

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Migrant, Woman and Business Owner: a Heterogeneous Group with Diverse Needs Karen Haandrikman and Natasha A K ULTURGEOGRAFISKT SEMINARIUM Migrant, woman and business owner: A heterogeneous group with diverse needs Karen Haandrikman and Natasha A. Webster 2020:1 Migrant, woman and business owner: A heterogeneous group with diverse needs Karen Haandrikman and Natasha A. Webster ©Karen Haandrikman och Natasha Webster, Stockholms universitet 2020 Omslag: Saitong Kerdprasop ISBN Print 978-91-87355-94-3 ISBN Online 978-91-87355-95-0 ISSN 0347-9552 Distributör: Kulturgeografiska institutionen, Stockholms universitet, Stockholm Table of contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................ 1 2. Migrant entrepreneurship ....................................................................... 5 3. Who gets to be self-employed? ............................................................. 7 4. Methods ................................................................................................. 9 5. Results ................................................................................................. 11 5.1 Results from register data: Who gets to be self-employed? .................................... 11 5.2 Results from interviews: Processes shaping self-employment ............................... 18 6. Conclusions ......................................................................................... 27 7. Policy recommendations ........................................................................... 29 References .................................................................................................... 31 Appendix Table 1. Descriptive statistics of self-employed and wage-employed migrant and native women, 2012 (%) ..................................................................................................... 35 Appendix Table 2. Logistic regression of self-employment versus wage-employment, migrant women, 2012 (%) ................................................................................................... 37 Figures and Tables Figure 1. Map of the 26 countries of origin of the women interviewed in the study ..................................................................................................... 10 Figure 2. Self-employment rates for women, 2012 ....................................... 11 Figure 3. Self-employment rates for women migrants by country of origin, 2012 ...................................................................................................... 12 Figure 4. Regression results for age, educational level and household position .............................................................................................................. 14 Figure 5. Regression results for grounds for settlement and region of origin .............................................................................................................. 15 Figure 6. Main employment sectors of self-employed women, 2012 ........... 17 Preface This paper is based on the Formas-funded project “Opportunities and Obsta- cles: Identifying hidden resources and skills to promote entrepreneurship among migrant women in Swedish regions” (diarienummer 942-2015-663), run by Karen Haandrikman and Natasha Webster at the Department of Human Geography at Stockholm University. This current study is an English transla- tion of a book chapter written in Swedish for the book Framtidens Chefer - Nyanlända och utrikes födda kvinnors entreprenörskap, published in 2020 by the think tank Fores in Stockholm. Stockholm, October 2020 Karen Haandrikman and Natasha Webster Sammanfattning Denna rapport undersöker möjligheterna och hindren för utrikes födda kvin- nors entreprenörskap i Sverige, där både kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder kombineras för att undersöka komplexiteten i gruppens entreprenörskap. Syftet är att använda ett kritiskt genusperspektiv på entreprenörskap för att undersöka vilka utrikes födda kvinnor som blir egenföretagare och under- söka processerna som formar deras entreprenörskap. Vi gör detta genom att analysera registerdata och genom att presentera resultaten av våra 36 inter- vjuer med utrikes födda kvinnor och entreprenörer. Rapporten avslutas med rekommendationer baserade på vår studies resultat. Studien kommer fram till att utrikes födda kvinnor oftare är egenföretagare än inrikes födda kvinnor, och att det är särskilt vanligt för kvinnor från Ne- derländerna, Kina, Polen och Storbritannien att vara egenföretagare. Utrikes födda kvinnor som är egenföretagare ofta har något slags lokalt socialt kapi- tal, såsom en svensk partner. De vanligaste branscherna för egenföretagande utrikes födda kvinnor är restauranger, städning och hårvård. Kvinnor som är egenföretagare värderar entreprenörskap högt. Tillgången till lokala resurser, såsom stödinsatser och arbetsmarknadsprogram, är ojämn. Utrikes födda kvinnor som är entreprenörer upplever dubbel diskriminering, som utrikes födda och som kvinnor. Summary The study examines migrant women’s entrepreneurship based on statistical analysis of register data and analysis of 36 economic life course interviews with migrant women entrepreneurs. We highlight the heterogeneity of migrant women’s entrepreneurship in Sweden and argue that the diversity of women’s experiences must be recognized by supporting policies and that policy sup- ports and programs must reflect the range of entrepreneurial backgrounds, em- phasizing the need for long-term supports. 1. Introduction More than 1 million immigrants have started a new life in Sweden since 1999. As a result, Sweden has transformed into a heterogeneous society with almost a fifth of the population born abroad. An increasing share of global migrants are women, and in Sweden, the share of women is especially high among fam- ily reunification migrants. In the last 15 years, migrants come from a range of backgrounds, for example as refugees from countries such as Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Iran and Afghanistan; as marriage migrants from Thailand; as EU citi- zens from Poland, Finland, the Netherlands and Rumania; and as labour mi- grants and students from China and India. Economic integration is often seen as the most important pathway for im- migrant integration and inclusion into society. Sweden now has one of the highest employment gaps between natives and immigrants in western coun- tries, with unemployment and low wages being particularly common among non-European migrants, and especially so among women and family migrants1 (Bevelander and Irastorza 2014). Some migrants that may be locked out of the labour market opt to start their own businesses of necessity. For many migrant women entrepreneurs, discrimination and/or racism in society and the labour market has played a role in choosing entrepreneurship (Dannecker and Cakir 2016). In the Nordic context, migrant entrepreneurs may experience discrim- ination and disadvantage by being migrants and residing in marginalized areas (Yeasim 2016; Yeasim and Koivurova 2019). However, through becoming entrepreneurs, migrants not only earn a livelihood but also contribute to the general economy and to regional development. In contrast to other countries, self-employed migrants in Sweden have much lower incomes than wage-em- ployed migrants (Andersson and Wadensjö 2004). Migrant women have it even harder than migrant men to get into the Swedish labour market (Bevelander and Irastorza 2014). Women make up 30 % of European entrepreneurs and in the EU, women dominate one-person enterprises (European Commission 2014). In Sweden, self-employment is more common for men than for women, but the share of entrepreneurs among migrant women is higher than among native women. However, in Sweden, only approximately 1 % of risk capital goes to women (as compared to 2 % in the US (Kanze et al. 2018)). 1 It should be pointed out here that, in a European perspective, Swedish women on average have very high employment rates. 1 Women and men have different start-up patterns, and migrant women en- trepreneurs generally follow different start-up patterns from mainstream en- trepreneurs (Berglund et al. 2013; Kushnirovich 2009). For instance, women are less keen on looking for external funders (Sena et al. 2012), less often receive governmental support but more often need assistance in network and mentoring support (Kushnirovich 2009). Some evidence suggests that new digital technologies may create opportunities for migrant women entrepre- neurs (Webster and Zhang 2020). Furthermore, women are often motivated by different reasons than men in becoming self-employed. They are for in- stance less often motivated by profit but instead strive for self-fulfilment or achieving a better work-life balance (Carranza et al. 2018). Women generally are more often discriminated against in entrepreneurship for example by fun- ders (Kanze et al. 2018). These differences imply a need for further explora- tion of migrant women entrepreneurs in Sweden who are doubly discriminated in the market; by being women and non-Swedish (Webster and Haandrikman 2017). This paper is based on a Formas funded project examining the opportunities and obstacles to women migrant entrepreneurship in Sweden, where both qualitative and quantitative methods are combined to explore the complexity of migrant women entrepreneurship. Our aim in this study is, using a gendered critical entrepreneurship perspective, to examine which migrant women be- come self-employed, and examine the processes shaping self-employment for migrant women. We do this by analysing register data, and by showcasing
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