Self-employment gap between natives and immigrants in Sweden

Sammanfattning: This paper examines three questions orderly with the help of the European Social Survey (ESS) pooled cross section data. Firstly, whether there is a gap of probability of being self-employed existed between natives and immigrants in Sweden. Secondly, whether there is heterogeneity existed within different ethnic group of immigrants and thirdly, if that heterogeneity existed across genders. The results show that there is no significant gap of probability of being self-employed between natives and immigrants in Sweden, and it can be due to the heterogeneity within the immigrant group itself. The results of logit model indicate that the probability of being self-employed for immigrants from Asian countries (the Middle East countries excluded) are significantly different from Swedish natives, and that for immigrants from the Middle East countries and Asian countries (the Middle East countries excluded) are both significantly different from immigrants from the Nordic countries (Sweden excluded). Furthermore, when looking by the perspective of genders, the results reveal that the heterogeneity existed when examining the groups for both genders can only be found in male immigrant group, while female immigrant group do not appear to be heterogeneous.