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Ethnic Entrepreneurship Opportunities in the European City
HADEWIJCH VAN DELFT, CEES GORTER, and PETER NIJKAMP
IJED, Vol. 5 No. 3,
(2003)
The rapidly rising inflow of foreign migrants confronts policy-makers with many socio-economic problems. Negative externalities of uncontrolled immigration are well known and often hard to cope with. In recent years we have seen many policy initiatives burden on self-reliance principles for ethnic groups. Against this background ethnic entrepreneurship has become a popular strategy, as it stimulates and encourages migrants to look after themselves with limited government support. An emphasis on ethnic entrepreneurship exploits the economic potential and opportunities instead of focusing on the problems minorities encounter when entering the labour market. In ethnic entrepreneurship, this potential can be utilised in a creative way, especially if well-organised projects and initiatives are developed.
In this paper, various assistance programmes and urban policies in several European cities aiming at favouring ethnic entrepreneurship will be systematically compared drawing lessons for effective labour market policies. The methodological approach will employ a systematic information base concerning self-employment strategies in the cities under investigation. A newly developed comparative statistical method for categorical information, - rough set analysis, will be used to identify critical success factors. The results suggest that utilisation of social networks is most helpful in enhancing self-employment among ethnic minorities. Finally, the paper offers some lessons for the establishment of socio-cultural and ethnic networks, strategies for improving training, and education, and improvement of access to facilities and financial resources.
