Author(s):
Su-Yeul Chung* - Western Illinois University
Seokhoi Yim - Daegu University
Abstract:
Ethnic entrepreneurship has been widely accepted an important mean for an immigrant group to improve economic status in the host society. However, less attention has been paid to intra-urban spatial pattern of ethnic entrepreneurship and lesser to its changes over time. In this paper, we examine self-employed Korean immigrants in Chicago IL PMSA in 1990 and 2000, using Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS). The analyses classify ethnic entrepreneurs into enclave entrepreneurs and middleman minorities and then middleman minorities are further divided into majority-customer-oriented and other-minorities-customer-oriented . Two questions are addressed. First, what are proportions and geographic patterns of middleman minorities and enclave entrepreneurs. Of particular interest is whether there are differences between them and changes over time. Second, how their living places are geographically connected to work places. Relevant to those analyses is assimilation theory which expects increasing proportion of majority-customer-oriented middleman minorities, geographic dispersion, and separation between living and working place as getting assimilated.
