Mexican Entrepreneurship: A Comparison of Self-Employment in Mexico and the United States

62 Pages Posted: 24 Mar 2006

See all articles by Robert W. Fairlie

Robert W. Fairlie

UCLA; National Bureau of Economic Research

Christopher M. Woodruff

University of California, San Diego (UCSD) - Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IRPS)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: March 2006

Abstract

Nearly a quarter of Mexico's workforce is self-employed. In the United States, however, rates of self-employment among Mexican Americans are only 6 percent, about half the rate among non-Latino whites. Using data from the Mexican and U.S. population census, we show that neither industrial composition nor differences in the age and education of Mexican born populations residing in Mexico and the U.S. accounts for the differences in the self-employment rates in the two countries. Within the United States, however, estimates indicate that low levels of education and the youth of Mexican immigrants residing in the United States account for roughly half of the Mexican immigrant/U.S. total difference in self-employment rates for men and the entire difference for women. We also find some suggestive evidence that for both men and women, Mexican immigrant self-employment rates may be higher for those who reside in the United States legally and are fluent in English, and for men, those who live in ethnic enclaves.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, self-employment, Mexico, Mexican-Americans

JEL Classification: J15, J23

Suggested Citation

Fairlie, Robert W. and Woodruff, Christopher, Mexican Entrepreneurship: A Comparison of Self-Employment in Mexico and the United States (March 2006). IZA Discussion Paper No. 2039, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=892841 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.892841

Robert W. Fairlie (Contact Author)

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Christopher Woodruff

University of California, San Diego (UCSD) - Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IRPS) ( email )

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