Chinese immigrant entrepreneurship in the United States: temporal and spatial dimensions

ABSTRACT

Focusing on transnational entrepreneurship and immigrant businesses in new destinations, this paper studies entrepreneurship of Chinese immigrants in the U.S. using data from three surveys. In the analysis of transnational connections, we focus on the temporal dimension that links pre-migration and post-migration business activities. Results from logistic models reveal that the prospect of being self-employed among Chinese immigrants is significantly enhanced if they are from households in China with business backgrounds. This finding highlights the fact that transnational entrepreneurship is embedded in the multi-stranded connections between the immigrant sending and receiving societies. In the second part of the paper, sequence analysis is used to describe and classify business trajectories in traditional and new immigrant destinations. The results establish that while it may take a longer time for immigrants to achieve business ownership in new destinations than in traditional destinations, new immigrant destinations increase the chance of business expansion from one business to multiple businesses. These findings indicate a transition in immigrant entrepreneurs’ business models. Businesses in traditional destinations mainly follow a survival strategy, while those in new destinations are adopting models that are akin to mainstream business operations, which gives rise to more opportunities for socioeconomic mobility.

KEYWORDS:

• Immigrant entrepreneurship
• Chinese immigrants
• transnationalism
• new destinations
• sequence analysis

Acknowledgments

The China International Migration Project was supported by the Ford Foundation (1025-1056), the National Science Foundation (SES- 0138016), and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (1 R01 HD39720-01). The 2014 Survey of Business Owners was supported by the Russell Sage Foundation (#88-10-06). Previous versions of the manuscript have been presented at the 2018 Annual Conference of International Chinese Sociological Association and the 113th American Sociological Association Annual Meeting. We appreciate Sofya Aptekar, Zhongdong Ma, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. In addition, Han Liu wants to thank the support and companionship received from Dongge Zhou. Dongge, will you marry me?

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Although ethnoburbs are mainly in middle-class suburban areas, they are also ethnically concentrated areas. Therefore, we think the social and market context for immigrant businesses in Chinese ethnoburbs are more similar to Chinatowns and other traditional destinations than to new destinations.

2 The specific locations are selected based on job advertisements posted in employment agencies in Manhattan’s Chinatown. We selected locations that had a growing presence in the job advertisements, so that the interviewers would be able to find Chinese business owners once they get there. Table A1 in the Appendix shows basic population profiles of the counties where these 36 immigrant entrepreneurs were located. On average, they were running businesses in countries with 0.66% Chinese in the population, significantly lower than the national level of 1.17% (t = -4.90; p < .001). Also, the locations cover a diverse range of geographic areas in terms of racial/ethnic composition and socioeconomic conditions.

3 These states may also be described as ‘non-traditional destinations’ or ‘non-gateway destinations’.

4 We also tested cross-group differences with t-tests. The single-new and single-traditional groups are significantly different at the .05 level on sample, age at survey, religious affiliation, age at migration, marital status at migration, N. of years in the U.S., N. of children at migration, and business ownership. The multiple-new and single-traditional groups differ significantly on sample, age at survey, Marital status at migration, N. of years in the U.S., N. of children at migration, business ownership, and N. of employees. The multiple-new and single-new groups differ significantly on sex, age at survey, N. of years in the U.S., N. of years in the U.S. before 1st business, N. of children at survey, and business ownership.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ford Foundation: [grant number 1025-1056]; NSF: [grant number SES- 0138016]; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development: [grant number 1 R01 HD39720-01]; Russell Sage Foundation: [grant number #88-10-06].