Latina Entrepreneurship

32 Pages Posted: 2 Mar 2009

See all articles by Magnus Lofstrom

Magnus Lofstrom

Public Policy Institute of California; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Timothy Bates

Wayne State University - College of Urban, Labor, & Metropolitan Affairs; University of Vermont - College of Arts and Sciences

Abstract

We utilize individual panel data from the 1996 and 2001 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to analyze the relative success of self-employed female Hispanics. To allow for a meaningful comparison of earnings between self-employed and wage/salary employed women, we generate different earnings measures addressing the role of business equity. We compare earnings of Hispanic female entrepreneurs to both Latina wage/salary workers and to self-employed female non-Hispanic whites. Latina entrepreneurs are observed to have lower mean earnings than both white female entrepreneurs and Latina employees. However, our findings indicate that Latina entrepreneurs often do well, once differences in mean observable characteristics, such as education, are taken into account. Self-employed Latinas are estimated to earn more than observationally similar nonminority white female entrepreneurs and slightly less than observationally similar Latinas in wage/salary work.

Keywords: minority, female, entrepreneurship, self-employment, Hispanic, Latina

JEL Classification: J15, J16, J31, L26

Suggested Citation

Lofstrom, Magnus and Bates, Timothy, Latina Entrepreneurship. IZA Discussion Paper No. 3997, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1351161 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1351161

Magnus Lofstrom (Contact Author)

Public Policy Institute of California ( email )

500 Washington Street
Suite 800
San Francisco, CA 94111
United States

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany
+49 228 3894 303 (Phone)
+49 228 3894 210 (Fax)

Timothy Bates

Wayne State University - College of Urban, Labor, & Metropolitan Affairs ( email )

Detroit, MI 48202
United States

University of Vermont - College of Arts and Sciences ( email )

United States

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