Jump to content

Immigrant entrepreneurship

From IdeaWazaWiki
Revision as of 11:18, 25 March 2026 by wikipedia>JondeJon1 (→Korean diaspora: clarity and npov)

Template:User sandbox Immigrant entrepreneurship refers to the founding or ownership of businesses by individuals who have immigrated to a country other than their country of birth. Such entrepreneurs have contributed in the economic development of many countries. Notable examples include Andrew Carnegie,[1] Alexander Graham Bell,[2] and Elon Musk[3] in the United States; Paul Julius Reuter in Britain;[4] and James de Rothschild, who established the French branch of the Rothschild dynasty.[5] Other examples include Lakshmi Mittal, who built ArcelorMittal into one of the world's largest steel producers;[6] Liem Sioe Liong, who founded the Salim Group, which became the largest business conglomerate in Southeast Asia;[7] and Helena Rubinstein who established an international cosmetics business.[8]

Patterns and prevalence

Research indicates that immigrants found businesses at higher rates than native-born populations in several developed countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.[9]

Across OECD countries, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's International Migration Outlook 2024 reports that migrant entrepreneurs represented 17% of the self-employed population in 2022, up from 11% in 2006. The report also states that migrant self-employment accounted for approximately 15% of total employment growth between 2011 and 2021.[10] The report notes that patterns of immigrant entrepreneurship vary across countries and regions.[10]

Additional data describe the scale and growth of immigrant entrepreneurship in specific contexts. According to the American Immigration Council, in 2024 approximately 46% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, with those companies generating $8.6 trillion in revenue and employing over 15.5 million people worldwide.[11]

In the United States, a 2019 review published in IZA World of Labor by economist Magnus Lofstrom reports that the foreign-born share of business owners more than doubled between 1980 and 2010.[12] A study using United States Census Bureau data found that immigrant entrepreneurs accounted for approximately 24% of new business founders between 1995 and 2008, with the share rising from 17% in 1995 to 27% in 2008.[9] A separate analysis based on the American Community Survey found that by around 2010, immigrants represented approximately 18.2% of all United States business owners despite comprising 16.3% of the workforce, and started businesses at roughly double the rate of the native-born population.[13]

Entrepreneurship by sector

Immigrant entrepreneurship spans a wide range of industries, with notable contributions in several sectors. The following sections highlight selected areas where such activity has been documented.

Technology

Immigrant founders have played a prominent role in the technology industry. A 2019 study by Brown, Earle, Kim and Lee, using United States Census Bureau data, found higher rates of innovation in immigrant-owned high-technology firms across 15 of 16 different innovation measures, with this pattern observed among both recent start-ups and established firms and across levels of educational attainment.[14] Among venture capital-backed firms in the United States, immigrants constituted approximately 30% of founders in 2005, slightly exceeding their overall share of entrepreneurial activity.[9] Notable examples include Sergey Brin, who emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States as a child and co-founded Google in 1998;[15] and Taiwan-born Jensen Huang, who emigrated to the United States at the age of nine and co-founded NVIDIA in 1993.[16]

Finance and banking

Research indicates that immigrant entrepreneurs have been active in the financial services sector in the United States, with immigrant business owners representing a substantial share in this industry.[13]

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, immigrant entrepreneurs were involved in the development of financial institutions and markets, including commercial paper and investment banking, particularly in urban financial centers such as New York City. German-Jewish immigrants were among those active in these areas and participated in the growth of financial networks and services during this period.

Marcus Goldman, a Bavarian-born Jewish immigrant who arrived in the United States in 1848, founded a commercial paper brokerage in 1869 in Lower Manhattan, which later became Goldman Sachs.[17]

Paul Warburg, a German-born banker who emigrated to the United States in 1902, was among the individuals involved in the development of the Federal Reserve System. He contributed to discussions on central banking and served on the system’s inaugural board following its establishment in 1913.[18]

Media and entertainment

Film and television

Immigrant entrepreneurs have been involved in the innovation and development of the American film and media industries with several notable examples.

Harry Warner, who was born in Poland and raised in the United States, and his brothers founded Warner Bros. in 1923.[19] The studio became one of the major Hollywood film companies and produced a large body of work throughout the 20th century.

In the modern era, Australian-born Rupert Murdoch became a naturalized United States citizen in 1985 and established News Corp and Fox Corporation, which expanded into major international media companies.[20]

Journalism

A number of immigrants have contributed to journalism in their host countries.

Hungarian-born Joseph Pulitzer immigrated to the United States in 1864 and became a naturalized citizen in 1867. He founded the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and later acquired the New York World. He also endowed the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and established the Pulitzer Prize, which has been awarded annually since 1917.[21]

Another example is Arianna Huffington, who emigrated from Greece to the United States via Britain, co-founded HuffPost in 2005. The company was acquired by AOL in 2011, and in 2012 HuffPost became the first digital-native news platform to receive a Pulitzer Prize.[22]

Digital media

Several widely used communication platforms have been co-founded by immigrants to the United States including YouTube and WhatsApp.

Steve Chen, who immigrated from Taiwan as a child, co-founded YouTube in 2005.[23] The platform was acquired by Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion.[24]

Jan Koum emigrated from Ukraine to California at the age of sixteen and co-founded WhatsApp in 2009.[25] Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014 for $19 billion.

Music

Cuban-born Emilio Estefan immigrated to Miami following the Cuban Revolution and co-founded the Miami Sound Machine. He worked as a producer and manager for artists including Gloria Estefan, Ricky Martin, Shakira, and Jennifer Lopez.[26] His wife Gloria Estefan, also Cuban-born, became a recording artist and received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 1993.[27]

Ahmet Ertegun, born in Istanbul and brought to the United States in 1935 when his father was appointed Turkish ambassador, later co-founded Atlantic Records in 1947. The label signed and developed artists including Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones.[28]

Retail and food

Immigrant entrepreneurs are represented in retail, food service, and agriculture across a range of regions. Research from Ireland, Sweden, and Southeast Asia has documented immigrant-owned food businesses operating in these areas, often supplying ethnic food products that may not be widely available to local consumers, and serving as one pathway to economic participation when other forms of employment are less accessible.[29][30][31]

Immigrant entrepreneurs have also been associated with the development of new markets in some sectors. Research on the United States labour market describes how Vietnamese immigrants established nail salons offering manicure and pedicure services at lower prices than many traditional beauty salons, contributing to increased access to these services and creating demand within the industry.[32]

Similar patterns have been observed in the restaurant sector, where immigrant-owned businesses have been associated with a wider variety of dining options in cities across the United States.[32] Research on immigrant-owned businesses in a Chicago retail district found that retail and personal services were common sectors of entry, and that many businesses began informally before transitioning into formal enterprises as owners accumulated capital and experience.[33]

In the United States, immigrants are estimated to account for approximately one third of entrepreneurs in the food service and accommodation sector.[13]

Entrepreneurship by diaspora

Research has found that some diaspora immigrant communities exhibit traits of business creation across their host countries. Studies have suggested that this pattern may be associated with factors such as co-ethnic networks, access to pooled capital, and trust-based commercial relationships that can reduce barriers to market entry.[34]

Chinese diaspora

Research has documented the presence of entrepreneurial activity within the Chinese diaspora across regions including Southeast Asia, North America, and Australasia. In Southeast Asia, ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs have established large business conglomerates during the 20th century. One documented example is Liem Sioe Liong, who emigrated from Fujian province to Indonesia in 1936 and founded the Salim Group, which grew into a major business conglomerate in Southeast Asia.[35]

In the United States, research has documented the presence of Chinese immigrants in the restaurant sector. Studies have described how Chinese employment agencies connect workers with restaurant jobs across the country, and how some Chinese entrepreneurs operate related businesses, such as transportation services for workers between cities.[32]

Chinese immigrants represented approximately 3.1% of all immigrant business owners in the United States in the late 2000s, with a reported business ownership rate of 10%.[13]

Indian diaspora

Research has found that Indian immigrants exhibit high rates of entrepreneurial activity across multiple host countries, with concentrations in sectors such as technology, retail, and financial services.

In the United States, data indicate that Indian immigrant business owners recorded relatively high average business earnings compared with other immigrant groups. This has been associated in part with higher levels of educational attainment, with a large proportion holding at least a four-year college degree.[13]

In the technology sector, Indian entrepreneurs have been documented as participating in transnational professional and business networks linking firms in the United States with talent and operations in India. This pattern has been described in the literature as brain circulation, referring to the movement of capital, expertise, and professional connections across countries.[32]

Indian immigrants have also been represented in the United States motel industry, where members of the Gujarati community in particular have established ownership in certain segments, often supported by co-ethnic networks and pooled capital.[32]

Korean diaspora

Research has found that Korean immigrants have relatively high rates of business ownership compared with other immigrant groups, with approximately 23.1% of Korean immigrants in the United States owning a business in the late 2000s.[13]

Studies comparing Korean and Iranian entrepreneurs in Los Angeles have found that Korean-owned businesses often make use of ethnic resources such as family labour, co-ethnic employees, rotating credit associations, and co-ethnic customers. These factors have been associated with a concentration of smaller businesses serving co-ethnic markets, often located in lower-income neighbourhoods.[34]

Persian diaspora

Iranian immigrants have recorded among the highest rates of business ownership of any immigrant group in the United States, with approximately 24.4% of Iranian immigrants owning a business in the late 2000s, the highest rate of any country of origin in major surveys.[13] Research comparing Korean and Iranian entrepreneurs in Los Angeles found that Iranian immigrants rely more heavily on class resources such as education, English fluency, and pre-migration business experience than on ethnic networks, in contrast to most other immigrant entrepreneurial groups. Iranian-owned businesses are characteristically larger, more geographically dispersed, and serve predominantly non-ethnic customers, a pattern that distinguishes them from the concentrated co-ethnic commerce typical of Korean or Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs.[34] Iranian immigration came in two waves: pre-revolution students and professionals who remained in the United States after 1979, and post-revolution exiles including religious minorities, both groups contributing to an exceptionally high rate of professional and entrepreneurial activity.[34] Qualitative research on Iranian women entrepreneurs in Los Angeles documented a range of home-operated and family-run businesses including clothing retail, grocery stores, and food production, in which ethnic networks, Persian language, and cultural knowledge of community needs served as competitive advantages.[36]

Lebanese diaspora

Lebanese immigrants have established entrepreneurial presences across West Africa and Latin America, building commercial networks that in some regions predated independence. In West Africa, Lebanese traders established dominant positions in retail cloth and clothing, import-export, and light industry across Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Cameroon and other countries from the early twentieth century, leveraging family networks and community credit systems to sustain their commercial position across generations.[37] A survey of commercial establishments in Dakar in 1959 found that Lebanese entrepreneurs owned 77% of clothing and cloth retail shops and 81% of hotels, bars and restaurants in the city.[37] The Lebanese diaspora in South America, which dates from the late 19th century, similarly developed prominent entrepreneurial communities across multiple countries, with Lebanese and Syrian migrants described by business historians as standing out in local business communities across the region, especially in commerce and services.[38]

Jewish diaspora

Jewish immigrants have played a historically significant role in banking, finance, media, and retail across Europe and North America, with their entrepreneurial presence frequently shaped by legal restrictions on other occupations in their countries of origin. In the United States, German-Jewish immigrants were instrumental in the development of Wall Street and American investment banking during the 19th and early 20th centuries, founding firms that became central to the country's financial architecture. Marcus Goldman, who arrived from Bavaria in 1848, founded what would become Goldman Sachs, while Paul Warburg, who emigrated from Hamburg in 1902, is widely credited as the primary intellectual architect of the Federal Reserve System.[39] In the media sector, Hungarian-born Joseph Pulitzer founded major American newspapers and endowed the journalism school and prize that bear his name, while the Warner brothers, born in Poland and Canada, founded Warner Bros. and helped establish the Hollywood studio system.[40][41]

African diaspora

African immigrant entrepreneurs have established notable commercial presences in several host countries, often concentrating in specific service sector niches. In the United States, Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants built a significant ownership presence in the taxi industry in Washington DC, transitioning from employment as drivers to ownership of the companies themselves through co-ethnic networks, in a pattern consistent with the stepladder model of immigrant business formation documented in other communities.[32] In Europe, refugee entrepreneurs from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East have established food, agricultural, and service businesses in rural areas of Sweden and other Nordic countries, with research finding that access to niche markets, community support, and government assistance were among the key motivating factors for business entry.[42]

Hispanic diaspora

Considerable entrepreneurial presence exists in the United States, though outcomes vary significantly by national origin. Mexican immigrants represent the largest single source country group among United States immigrant business owners, accounting for approximately 23.4% of the total, though their business ownership rate falls below the national average, a pattern attributed largely to lower average levels of education and wealth and, for undocumented individuals, barriers related to legal status. Cuban immigrants, by contrast, show a substantially higher business ownership rate of 14.8%, with self-employment rates found to increase in areas of high Hispanic residential concentration.[13]

Women immigrant entrepreneurs

Women have featured prominently among immigrant entrepreneurs across multiple sectors and host countries, though they remain underrepresented in the broader literature. Research on Iranian immigrant women entrepreneurs in Los Angeles found that gender shapes access to ethnic resources differently for men and women, with home-operated businesses representing a distinctive pathway for women who faced barriers to external employment, combining ethnic networks, cultural knowledge, and community trust as competitive advantages in sectors including clothing retail, food production, and personal services.[43] Joyce Chen, who emigrated from China to the United States in 1949, founded restaurants, a cookware company, and a television programme credited with introducing Mandarin cuisine to American audiences.[44] Amina Moghe Hersi, a Somali-Kenyan entrepreneur who emigrated to Uganda in 1998, built a multimillion-dollar business empire spanning real estate, hardware distribution, and manufacturing, and was named African Businesswoman of the Year by The New Economy in 2014.[45]

Academic perspectives

Self-employment has been identified in the academic literature as a significant pathway for labour market integration among immigrant populations. Research indicates, however, that entrepreneurship yields stronger economic outcomes for high-skilled immigrants than for those with lower levels of formal qualification. Studies based on United States data suggest that immigrant-founded businesses tend to show greater employment growth over the medium term compared to native-founded businesses, though without a corresponding advantage in payroll growth, and with higher rates of both failure and expansion relative to native-founded firms.[9] Immigrant-owned businesses have also been found to export at higher rates than native-owned businesses, a pattern attributed to commercial networks, shared language, and cultural ties with countries of origin.[13]

Research on immigrant entrepreneurship in the United States high-tech sector has found that immigrant-owned firms demonstrate higher rates of innovation across a broad range of measures, including product innovation, process innovation, research and development, and patenting. A 2019 study found this advantage persists after controlling for demographic characteristics, start-up financing, motivations, and industry, suggesting it reflects a genuine difference in entrepreneurial behaviour rather than compositional factors.[14] A 2025 study of nearly 91,000 United States start-ups by researchers at UC Berkeley and the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business found that ventures with mixed immigrant and native-born founding teams outperformed those founded by either group alone, employing 20% more people after three years, raising larger funding rounds, and filing significantly more patents. The researchers attributed the advantage to expanded access to international talent, capital, and markets.[46]

A further strand of research examines the motivations behind immigrant entrepreneurship and its long-term economic outcomes. The blocked mobility hypothesis proposes that immigrants who face barriers to employment commensurate with their education and skills, including non-recognition of foreign qualifications, language barriers, and labour market discrimination, are more likely to turn to self-employment as an alternative route to economic advancement. Research on Korean and Middle Eastern immigrant entrepreneurs in Chicago found that these groups were significantly more likely than white or Hispanic business owners to cite labour market disadvantage as a reason for entering self-employment, consistent with the blocked mobility argument.[47] Over time, however, research suggests that self-employment can serve as an effective integration pathway. Studies based on United States Census data found that self-employment probabilities and earnings for immigrants increase with time spent in the country, with evidence that self-employed immigrants may approach earnings parity with observationally similar native-born entrepreneurs after approximately 25 years of residence, a convergence not consistently observed among immigrant wage and salary workers.[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Gould, Sam (1995). "Andrew Carnegie: Scottish Immigrant, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist". University of Dayton Review 23 (3). https://ecommons.udayton.edu/udr/vol23/iss3/5. 
  2. ↑ "Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)". BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/bell_alexander_graham.shtml. 
  3. ↑ Sommerlad, Joe (6 February 2025). "Elon Musk, who arrived in the U.S. at age 31, is being questioned on his citizenship again. What to know". The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-citizenship-us-south-africa-canada-b2693635.html. 
  4. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  5. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  6. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  7. ↑ "Founder of Indonesia's Salim Group dies at 97". Korea Herald. AFP. 12 June 2012. https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10365506. 
  8. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Kerr, Sari Pekkala; Kerr, William R. (2016). "Immigrant Entrepreneurship". NBER Working Paper (17-011). https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/17-011_da2c1cf4-a999-4159-ab95-457c783e3fff.pdf. 
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Template:Cite report
  11. ↑ "Fortune 500 Companies Founded by Immigrants". 2024. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/report/new-american-fortune-500-2024/. 
  12. ↑ Lofstrom, Magnus (2019). "Immigrants and Entrepreneurship". IZA World of Labor. https://wol.iza.org/articles/immigrants-and-entrepreneurship/long. 
  13. ↑ 13.00 13.01 13.02 13.03 13.04 13.05 13.06 13.07 13.08 13.09 Fairlie, Robert W.; Lofstrom, Magnus (2015). "Immigration and Entrepreneurship". Handbook of the Economics of International Migration. 1B. Elsevier. pp. 877-911. https://people.ucsc.edu/~rfairlie/papers/published/handbook%20chapter%20immigrant%20entrepreneurship%202015.pdf. 
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Brown, J. David; Earle, John S.; Kim, Mee Jung; Lee, Kyung Min (2019). "Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Innovation in the U.S. High-Tech Sector". NBER Working Paper (25565). https://www.nber.org/papers/w25565. 
  15. ↑ Greenstein, Shane (21 December 2015). "Without Immigrants, We Wouldn't Have Google". https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/without-immigrants-we-wouldn-t-have-google. 
  16. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  17. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  18. ↑ "Paul M. Warburg". https://www.federalreservehistory.org/people/paul-m-warburg. 
  19. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  20. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  21. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  22. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  23. ↑ "Steven Chen". https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/biography/steven-chen. 
  24. ↑ "Google Inc. Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 9 October 2006. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312506206884/dex991.htm. 
  25. ↑ "Jan Koum, WhatsApp's Co-Founder, Leaving Facebook". The New York Times. 30 April 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/technology/jan-koum-whatsapp-facebook.html. 
  26. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  27. ↑ "Gloria Estefan". https://www.ilctr.org/about-immigrants/ilc-publications-and-resources/nine-famous-latinx-immigrants/. 
  28. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  29. ↑ Murphy, Anna; Bogue, Joe; O'Flaherty, Brian (2020). "Exploration of the Role of Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Regional Entrepreneurial Food Ecosystems". Proceedings of the European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. doi:10.34190/EIE/20.214. 
  30. ↑ Barth, Ghazal; Zalkat (2021). "Refugee entrepreneurship in the agri-food industry: The Swedish experience". Journal of Rural Studies 86: 189-197. doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.06.011. 
  31. ↑ Tran, Thuy Thanh Thi; Meyer; Zhu; Do (2026). "Vietnamese food entrepreneurs in Bangkok's Baan Yuan". Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. doi:10.1080/1369183X.2025.2601335. 
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 32.2 32.3 32.4 32.5 Eckstein, Susan; Peri, Giovanni (2018). "Immigrant Niches and Immigrant Networks in the U.S. Labor Market". RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 4 (1): 1-17. doi:10.7758/rsf.2018.4.1.01. 
  33. ↑ Raijman, Rebeca; Tienda, Marta (2000). "Immigrants' Pathways to Business Ownership: A Comparative Ethnic Perspective". International Migration Review 34 (3): 682-706. doi:10.2307/2675941. 
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 34.2 34.3 Min, Mehdi; Bozorgmehr (2000). "Immigrant Entrepreneurship and Business Patterns: A Comparison of Koreans and Iranians in Los Angeles". International Migration Review 34 (3): 707-738. doi:10.2307/2675942. 
  35. ↑ "Founder of Indonesia's Salim Group dies at 97". Korea Herald. AFP. 12 June 2012. https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10365506. 
  36. ↑ Dallalfar, Arlene (1994). "Iranian Women as Immigrant Entrepreneurs". Gender and Society 8 (4): 541-561. http://www.jstor.org/stable/189817. 
  37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 O'Brien, Rita Cruise (1975). "Lebanese Entrepreneurs in Senegal: Economic Integration and the Politics of Protection". Cahiers d'Études Africaines 15 (57): 95-115. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4391369. 
  38. ↑ Austin, Gareth (2018). "Emerging Markets and the Future of Business History". Harvard Business School. https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/18-012_47e98088-6b60-4630-bf51-f6ca5abfe766.pdf. 
  39. ↑ "Paul M. Warburg". https://www.federalreservehistory.org/people/paul-m-warburg. 
  40. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  41. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  42. ↑ Barth, Henrik; Zalkat, Ghazal (2021). "Refugee entrepreneurship in the agri-food industry: The Swedish experience". Journal of Rural Studies 86: 189-197. doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.06.011. 
  43. ↑ Dallalfar, Arlene (1994). "Iranian Women as Immigrant Entrepreneurs". Gender and Society 8 (4): 541-561. http://www.jstor.org/stable/189817. 
  44. ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
  45. ↑ "Spotlight: Real Muloodi Amina Hersi Moghe". https://realmuloodi.co.ug/spotlight-real-muloodi-amina-hersi-moghe/. 
  46. ↑ "For startup success, teams with both U.S.-born and immigrant founders have an edge". 23 September 2025. https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/research/for-startup-success-teams-with-both-u-s-born-and-immigrant-founders-have-an-edge-study-shows/. 
  47. ↑ Raijman, Rebeca; Tienda, Marta (2000). "Immigrants' Pathways to Business Ownership: A Comparative Ethnic Perspective". International Migration Review 34 (3): 682-706. doi:10.2307/2675941. 
Retrieved from "https://ideawaza.com/index.php?title=Immigrant_entrepreneurship&oldid=71616"