Diversity Matters: Immigrant Entrepreneurship and Contribution of Different Forms of Social Integration in Economic Performance of Cities

Abstract

While it is quite common in studies of diversity to focus on its negative aspects, this paper specifically aims to emphasize the contribution of immigrants to the urban economic performance. By exploring different kinds of social integration, this paper discusses how immigrant groups can be important agents of urban economic growth and competitiveness by liberating creative forces and enhancing the competitiveness. Immigrant entrepreneurship is defined as the most important means of social inclusion and sustained economic performance in two different cities, with different features yet hosting considerable number of immigrants with diverse characteristics, namely Antwerp (Belgium) and Izmir (Turkey). The findings of our two case studies reveal that different kinds of diversity play an important role in urban economic performance. Immigrants contribute to the growth of different forms of production and services, not only because of their talents and skills, but also because of their social connections. Social capital enables immigrants to survive in a recipient country, and integrate into an economy as active agents. They can fill the gaps in an economy as entrepreneurs or the skilled labour, which are the most important assets for the cities aiming sustained economic growth in volatile economic conditions.

Notes

Within the framework of this paper, we define migrants as people who came to a country, or to another region in the same country where they were not born in order to settle.

The telephone interview questions (originally asked in Turkish) are:

Name of the business:

Address:

Name of the owner:

Type of business/trade/service:

Nationality and birth place of the owner:

When did you establish this business?

Is this your first business?

Yes/no

If no

  What was the previous business type?

If different from the current one:

  Why changed the type of business?

  Why changed the product?

Why did you chose this line of business?

  What/who was influential in your selection of this line of business?

Why did you chose this very location?

  Who/what influenced this decision?

If it is not the first business:

  Was the location of your previous business in this neighbourhood as well?

If different location:

  Why different location?

Did you get financial support while establishing your business?

  If so what was the source of this support?

The 496 questionnaire forms were distributed across eight neighbourhoods (62 per neighbourhood). The distribution of questionnaires was not based upon ratios, but on a hypothetical distribution. According to category of each neighbourhood in a homogenous structure (p = 0.2/q = 0.8), 496 questionnaires enabled us to achieve a 95% confidence level.

By special arrangement, Greeks living in Istanbul and Turks living in the Greek part of Thrace were exempted from the compulsory exchanges.

The income per capita of the regions in 2001 (TUIK-Turkish Statistical Institute data, 2009).

• Table

From 1.7 billion US dollars to 4.9 billion US dollars.

In practice, the main measure of poverty used in the EU at present is the Eurostat definition: the percentage of people with an income of 60% or less of the median income in the country in which they live (ref: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docoffic/official/reports/p122_en.htm#1).