Some people argue that immigrants to the United States are more likely than the native-born to become entrepreneurs, and that to enhance entrepreneurial activity America needs to bring in more immigrants.
For instance, Jonathan Ortmans, president of the Public Forum Institute, wrote on the Kauffman Foundation blog, “Evidence shows that immigrants start a disproportionately high number of new U.S. firms.”
Others counter that the data don’t show that pattern and that we should not change public policy toward immigration on the basis of these data.
It turns out that who is more likely to be an entrepreneur—the foreign- or native-born—depends a lot on what you measure and when you look at it.
According to data from the 2008 Global Entrepreneur Monitor Report (GEM) for the United States, when entrepreneurship is measured as starting a new business, immigrants appear more entrepreneurial than the native-born. But when entrepreneurship is measured as owning a more mature business, the native-born score higher. The GEM figures show that immigrants have a slightly higher rate of “total entrepreneurial activity”—a composite of the share of the population that is either “actively planning a new venture” or is an owner-manager of a business of between 4 and 42 months old—than the native-born (9.43 versus 8.81 percent). However, the native-born have a higher “percentage of individuals in a population who have set up businesses that they continue to own and manage and who have paid wages or salaries for more than 42 months”: 7.90 for the native-born as compared to 6.74 for immigrants.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Immigration And Entrepreneurship In America | Gov Monitor
Author: Scott Shane
