Choice or necessity: do immigrants and their children choose self-employment for the same reasons?

Using a generational cohort method and the 1981 and 2006 Canadian Census 20 per cent sample files, this study examines whether the effects of three important determinants of self-employment – expected earnings differentials between paid and self-employment, difficulties in the labour market, and ethnic enclave – differ between immigrants and non-immigrants. Unemployment had a stronger push effect on self-employment among immigrant fathers than among Canadian-born fathers. Expected earnings differential had a stronger effect among Canadian-born fathers than among immigrant fathers. Sons of both immigrants and the Canadian-born were more strongly affected by expected earnings differentials than were their fathers, while unemployment was not a significant factor for them. Ethnic enclave was not positively associated with the self-employment rates among both immigrants and their children.