Family characteristics and entrepreneurship

among immigrants in the Netherlands:

The association of marital status and children with entrepreneurship
among immigrants and the differences between first- and second-
generation immigrants

Abstract
This study analyses the family characteristics of entrepreneurs among immigrants. This study
discusses first what entrepreneurship is with its functions and determinants. Next, it describes
differences between entrepreneurship in the total population and entrepreneurship among
immigrants. A historical overview is given of recent immigration streams in the Netherlands.
The empirical analyses of this study focus on the association of marital status and children
with entrepreneurship (compared to all other possible occupations) among immigrants in
general. The differences between the associations of marital status and children with
entrepreneurship among first- and second generation immigrants are also researched
separately. The analyses are based on a sample of 1,557 immigrants living in the Netherlands
that participated in the Immigrant Panel of the LISS Database. The empirical analyses show no
significant associations of marriage and divorce with entrepreneurship among immigrants and
among first- and second-generation immigrants separately. No significant evidence is found
for having children in the household, having young children (in the age 0-6 years) and children
older than 18 years being associated with entrepreneurship among immigrants or among first-
and second-generation immigrants separately. This study further discusses possible
explanations for the absence of significant results.

Author: Annahit Albert Grigorian BSc

Supervisor: C.A. Rietveld MSc & Prof. Dr. A.R. Thurik

Master thesis Entrepreneurship and Strategy

Erasmus School of Economics

22 July 2014
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Content
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 4

2. Theoretical framework ................................................................................................................ 6

2.1 Introduction to entrepreneurship ........................................................................................... 6

2.2 Economic function of entrepreneurship ................................................................................ 8

2.3 Immigration in the Netherlands............................................................................................. 9

2.3.1 Immigration streams ....................................................................................................... 9

2.3.4 Actual numbers of immigrants ..................................................................................... 13

2.4 Determinants of entrepreneurship among immigrants ........................................................ 15

2.4.1 Categories of determinants of entrepreneurship ........................................................... 15

2.4.2 Summary of determinants of entrepreneurship ............................................................ 17

2.5 Family composition ............................................................................................................. 22

2.5.1 Marriage and entrepreneurship among immigrants ...................................................... 22

2.5.2 Divorce and entrepreneurship among immigrants ........................................................ 24

2.5.3 Marital status and first- and second-generation differences ......................................... 26

2.5.4 Children and entrepreneurship among immigrants ...................................................... 27

2.5.5 Child age category and entrepreneurship among immigrants ...................................... 29

2.5.6 Children and first- and second-generation differences ................................................. 31

3. Dataset and methodology.......................................................................................................... 33

3.1 Data ..................................................................................................................................... 33

3.1.1 Database........................................................................................................................ 33

3.1.2 Dataset .......................................................................................................................... 35

3.2 Variables.............................................................................................................................. 37

3.2.1 Dependent variable entrepreneurship among immigrants ............................................ 37

3.2.2 Independent variables ................................................................................................... 38

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

3.2.3 Control variables........................................................................................................... 40

3.2.3 Variable definitions and summary statistics ................................................................. 43

3.2.4 The correlation test ....................................................................................................... 45

3.3 Methodology ....................................................................................................................... 48

4. Results ....................................................................................................................................... 50

4.1 Results hypotheses H1, H2.1 and H2.2 (marital status) .................................................. 50

4.2 Results hypotheses H3.1, H3.2, H3.3 and H3.4 (generation differences) ....................... 53

4.3 Results hypotheses H4.1 and H4.2 (children in the household) ...................................... 56

4.4 Results hypotheses H5.1, H5.2, H5.3 and H5.4 (child age category) ............................. 58

4.5 Results hypotheses H6.1, H6.2, H6.3 and H7.1, H7.2, H7.3 (generation differences) ... 61

4.6 Robustness check ............................................................................................................. 66

5. Discussion ................................................................................................................................. 67

5.1 Evidence for marriage and entrepreneurship among immigrants .................................... 67

5.2 Evidence for divorce and entrepreneurship among immigrants ...................................... 69

5.3 Evidence for children in the household and entrepreneurship among immigrants ......... 70

5.4 Evidence for child age category and entrepreneurship among immigrants ..................... 71

6. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 72

7 Limitations and future research ................................................................................................. 73

8. References ................................................................................................................................. 75

9. Appendix ................................................................................................................................... 83

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

1. Introduction
An association is found in the existing literature between the marital status, children and
entrepreneurship in the general population. Several explanations have been proposed, such as the
entrepreneur leveraging his or her occupational risks, gaining tax benefits and finding emotional
support via his or her marriage. The consequences of divorce lead to either supporting or
discouraging the single parent becoming an entrepreneur.

Moreover, having children can create cheap or unpaid labour and an opportunity to pass on a
family business. Finally, for parents entrepreneurship can provide the opportunity to work at
home while taking care of the children at the same time.

Study on this topic, specifically among the immigrant population, is still scarce. It is even less
when considering the first- and second-generation immigrants separately. An unambiguous
answer to the question whether these associations also exist among the immigrant population has
not yet been found. Thus, the main question of this study is to examine the association between
entrepreneurship and family composition among the immigrants in the Netherlands, in terms of
marriage, divorce and children.

This study specifically looks at the association of being married, being divorced, having children
in the household, having young and adult children and entrepreneurship among immigrants and
among first- and second-generation immigrants separately. With the theoretical framework and
empirical analyses in a sample of Dutch immigrant population, this study aims to throw light on
the literature gap of the topic family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants.

It is generally accepted that entrepreneurship is responsible for a significant growth of the

economy through job creation and innovation (Wennekers & Thurik, 1999; Van Praag &
Versloot, 2007). This makes it interesting for policy makers to stimulate the determinants that are
the drivers of entrepreneurship. These determinants differ and can be categorised in many ways
and based on different perspective. The determinants concerning the demographical aspects of
human beings also include the characteristics of family composition on entrepreneurship among
immigrants which are explored insufficiently. Based on the found significant evidences, policy
makers may develop new taxation and integration laws in order to stimulate entrepreneurship
among their immigrant population.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Before conducting the empirical analyses, Section 2.1 and 2.2 provide an introduction to
entrepreneurship research. These sections explain what is understood by entrepreneurship in this
study and what functions entrepreneurship has in the economy. This study makes use of the
occupational choice model to explain why certain family characteristics are associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrant. This model explains occupational choices based on the
expected utility. This study argues that the expected utility from entrepreneurship varies over
family characteristics among immigrants.

Next, Section 2.3 gives a historical overview of the immigration streams that have laid a base for
the actual immigration rates in the Netherlands. As the Netherlands has always been an attractive
country for trade, immigrants have been settling here since Golden Age (Centrum voor de
geschiedenis van migranten [CGM] (2014)). The actual biggest ethnic groups however have
started settling here since the reconstructions after the world wars. Their family reunions and
family expansions over the years have also contributed to the actual great share of the immigrant
population.

Section 2.4 discusses the determinants of entrepreneurship among immigrants in general. Here,
the possible reasons are discussed for individuals who choose entrepreneurship above all other
occupational choices. Existing literature so far has neglected the determinants of family
composition among immigrants. Section 2.5 first explores the associations of marriage and
divorce with entrepreneurship among immigrants. In the existing literature about (immigrant)
entrepreneurship, being married is found to have a significant positive association with
entrepreneurship among immigrants in general, while being divorced shows mixed associations.
Overall, there is little study performed on the association between marital status and
entrepreneurship among first- and second generation immigrants separately. Next, Section 2.5
explores the associations of children with entrepreneurship among immigrants. In the existing
literature, having children in the household and having adult children has a positive association
with entrepreneurship among immigrants, while having young children hinders them to become
entrepreneurs. In this section all the hypotheses are formulated.

The data and methodology are explained in Section 3. The results of the empirical analyses are
presented in Section 4. In Section 5, the discussion part, the results are compared to the existing
literature and Section 6 contains the conclusion of this study and suggestions for further research.

5
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

2. Theoretical framework

2.1 Introduction to entrepreneurship

What does entrepreneurship mean? Is it being innovative, risk taking and creative or operating a
firm? Does it involve the creation of new ventures or activities that exist in incumbent firms?
Originally, the word ‘entrepreneur’ is derived from the French verb “entreprendre”, which means
undertake, initiate, begin, start or make. In the Dutch dictionary Van Dale, the word
‘entrepreneur’ is defined as an “ondernemer”, meaning a person who undertakes something or an
individual who works on his own account in a sector of an industry or in a business (Van Dale &
Sterkenburg, 1996).

Over the past decades, entrepreneurship has received a broad array of different definitions. There
is rich literature about the topic, but there has been no consensus reached over the years about a
single definition. There is no common understanding of what the term entrepreneurship should
be and usually it is explained as a multilevel, multidisciplinary occupation with multiple
perspectives (Parker, 2009). While Gartner (1990) defines entrepreneurship as “The process of
new business creation”, Shane and Venkataraman (2000) see it more as “the scholarly
examination of how, by whom and with what effects opportunities to create future goods and
services are discovered, evaluated and exploited”.

On the other hand, Casson (1982; 2005) gives it a more specific definition by specializing it to a
specific area in the economic cycle: “someone who is specialized in making judgemental
decisions about the co-ordination of scarce resources”. This is then broadened by Hébert and
Link (2006) by adding a responsibility for the actions taken by the entrepreneur and also
broadening the areas that are affected by his judgemental decisions: the location, the form and
the use of goods, the use of resources and the use of institutions.

What entrepreneurs actually do can be divided in two categories. The first category is that of the
occupational notice, meaning that the individual owns and manages a business on his own
account and risk. The second category is based on the behavioural notion, meaning that the
entrepreneur shows behaviour in the sense of seizing an economic opportunity (Sternberg &
Wennekers, 2005). According to Wennekers and Thurik (1999) there are three types of
entrepreneurs. Based on there (self-) employment activity they divided individuals in

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

independent entrepreneurs, (managerial) business owners end corporate entrepreneurs within a

firm.

In this study, entrepreneurship is defined as self-employment / business ownership in the same

sense as Parker defines entrepreneurship in his book ‘The economics of entrepreneurship’
(2009). By combining many studies that have been conducted on the topic “entrepreneurship”,
Parker (2009) defines entrepreneurship as followed: “Individuals who earn no regular wage or
salary but who derive their income by exercising their profession or business on their own
account and at their own risk”.

This definition of entrepreneurship follows the occupational choice model of maximizing the
expected utility gained from the occupational choice. The determinants that are associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrants provide utility that make the immigrant to choose for
entrepreneurship. Choosing for entrepreneurship is not a continuous decision for entrepreneurs
among immigrants to be switching from one occupation to another and back. It is rather a
discrete choice of choosing entrepreneurship above all other occupational choices for gaining the
highest utility (Parker, 2009). Utility in that matter is as well monetary benefits as non-monetary
benefits. In the next sections the different functions of entrepreneurship and the different reasons
for immigrants to be choosing for entrepreneurship are explained.

Immigrants enjoy several disadvantages compared to the natives, as will be discussed later.
Based on the occupational choice model, the decision of immigrants to choose for
entrepreneurship is because this offers them maximized utility compared to other occupational
choices. Entrepreneurs among immigrants are not born as an entrepreneur like the Knightian
theory of economic function of entrepreneurship (Knight, 1921) will explain in the next section.
They rather make the choice of becoming an entrepreneur in an environment with great
uncertainty that offers them opportunities for survival and the possibility of gaining the highest
possible utility.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

2.2 Economic function of entrepreneurship

As entrepreneurship has different definitions, it is also described as having different economic

functions, depending on different historical perspectives. These perspectives explain why
entrepreneurship is important and in what way it affects the economy. In general,
entrepreneurship has three economic functions.

First, entrepreneurship has the function of arbitrage and the bearing of risk. According to
Cantillon (1755) the entrepreneurial activity exists only in pure arbitrage by an entrepreneurial
class that does not affect demand and supply. The sole reason that this entrepreneurial class
survives is because of uncertainty that lets him exchange and circulate in the economy. Knight
(1921) and Kirzner (1973) also highlight the importance of uncertainty in the process of
arbitrage, as it keeps the entrepreneur alert for exploitation of profitable opportunities. The
entrepreneur moves the economy towards equilibrium while he is restricted in his actions by
calculable uncertainty (risk) and limited information about the availability of natural resources,
technological change and prices. This view of arbitration is broadened by Say (1836) by giving
the entrepreneur a managerial role in the production and distribution of factors.

The second function of entrepreneurship is therefore co-ordination of the factors of production.

By coordinating both on the market level as well as on the firm level, the entrepreneur creates
utility by giving existing factors of production a utility they did not possess before. In this
perspective, the number of entrepreneurs is limited which gives the opportunity of creating
relatively high rewards.

While the arbitration and the co-ordination perspectives give entrepreneurship a more balancing
role in the economy of working towards equilibrium, the third function of entrepreneurship lays
its importance in the innovation and creative destruction of the existing economy. According to
Schumpeter (1934), entrepreneurship is a temporary activity that creates disequilibrium by
innovating towards new combinations of factors of production. By being an innovator who
introduces new products and services, the entrepreneur is the driver behind the economic
progress. The reach of his innovation is dependent of different determinants of entrepreneurship.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

2.3 Immigration in the Netherlands

2.3.1 Immigration streams

Immigration is defined as the establishment of persons from abroad in the Netherlands. In order
to be counted as an immigrant these persons should be included in the municipal population
registers. One is registered in the municipal population registers if his stay is expected to last
longer than 4 months (Centraal bureau voor de statistiek [CBS], 2014). To understand what the
origins are of the current immigrants, we have to look at the immigration streams throughout the
history of the Netherlands.

First mass-immigration
Since the sixteenth century the Netherlands has been a very attractive nation for immigrants to
settle. Being one of the entry ports to Europe, its agriculture and industry bloomed during the
Golden Age. During this age the Netherlands consisted of seven provinces that were called
together the Dutch Republics. The population of the Republics was very low and without
immigrants it could not keep up to the worldwide demand for more products. This caused a
positive stream of immigrants and a lot of unskilled and skilled labour emerged to a top layer of
traders, merchants, intellectuals and entrepreneurs who brought numerous technical and cultural
innovations. After this period of mass immigration and great wealth, the economic growth
stagnated. Since the number of immigrants also declined, the Dutch politics did not concern then
about immigration policies (Lucassen & Lucassen, 2011; CGM, 2014).

Based on different historical sources such as birth certificates that were handed over during a
marriage registration, Lucassen and Lucassen (2011) constructed the share of immigrants among
the Dutch population. The table below (Figure 1) shows that wile during the Golden Age the
immigration had reached a top of almost 8 percent of the population, by the year 1900 this share
had dropped to only 1.8 percent. This decline of the immigration was also due to the loss of the
Republics dominant position in his neighbouring countries.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Figure 1 First-generation immigrants* in the Dutch population in percentages (1600-2010)

Note: * The share of those born abroad in the Dutch population in percentages
Source: Lucassen and Lucassen (2011), “The Netherlands”

The immigrants that did settle during the years 1820-1940 had a positive influence on the society
and on themselves. Starting from traders to aircraft technicians, they contributed to the economy
and were demanded for their high qualifications and their entrepreneurial intentions. In the
1930’s, along with other particular organisations, it were the immigrants who took care of the
upcoming stream of Belgian and Jewish refugees and later the stream of repatriation of 300,000
well-educated Dutch, Indo’ and Moluccan migrants (Lucassen & Lucassen, 2011; CGM, 2014;
Vermeulen & Penninx , 2000; Engbersen, Leun, & Boom, 2007).

Second mass-immigration
After the Second Wold War, there was a period of rather fast reconstruction and industrialisation,
and the economy grew prosperously. There was a demand for labour and the Dutch started
actively stimulating migration to the Netherlands. The Dutch government started actively
attracting a great stream of labour migrants from Spain, Italy and later Turkey (in the year 1963)
and Morocco (in the year 1969) (Lucassen & Lucassen, 2011; Vermeulen & Penninx , 2000).
These workers were called ‘guest workers’, for their stay was only for a period that their contract
was signed for.

This situation of economic blooming changed due to economic recession from the mid of the
1970’s, but most of these guest workers never returned back home (Engbersen, Leun, & Boom,
2007). Instead they settled themselves and even called their family members to unite with them
in the Netherlands (Vermeulen & Penninx , 2000); Rusinovic, 2006). This family reunification
combined with the arrival of ten thousands Surinamese after their declaration of independence in

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

1975, was followed by an increase in the significant number of asylum seekers. This period is
seen as the second mass immigration after the Golden Age. Due to the economic recession and
the low immigration policies, - in the eyes of a lot of natives - this immigration flow was not
accepted as positively as before (Lucassen & Lucassen, 2011; CGM, 2014).

From the end of the twentieth century, the demand for labour, particularly in agriculture,
horticulture, industry and services, started to rise again. This attracted a lot of labour immigrants
from Eastern Europe, particularly from Poland. Also skilled workers from India, Japan and the
United States have kept immigrating and have shown a great contribution to the innovative
strength of the current Dutch economy (Lucassen & Lucassen, 2011; CGM, 2014).

Refugees and asylum seekers

A category of immigrants that has also always existed, is that consisting of refugees and asylum-
seekers. These are persons applying from another country who are applying for admission as a
refugee. Asylum requests are submitted by persons who for various reasons have left their
homeland to find protection or asylum in another country (CBS, 2014).

The past has shown that there is significant evidence of association between this group of
immigrants and civil wars / persecutions. This is the case for the Ex- Yugoslavs in 1990, the
Iraqis, Afghans and Somalis who have started migrating since the war on terror in the Middle
East (Lucassen & Lucassen, 2011). Although in the beginning of the 21st century the number of
asylum requests was almost 40,000 per year as Figure 2 shows below, this number has dropped
to 9,700 in 2012. Figure 2 also shows that the asylum request had reached a peak of 52,600
requests in 1994.In 2012 the largest number of asylum seekers came from Iraq (1,4 thousand)
and Afghanistan (1,0 thousand) (Sprangers & Winter, 2013).

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Figure 2 Number of first* asylum requests per year (1980-2012)

Note: * The numbers in this article relate from 2007 only first asylum requests. Until 2007, the figures are the total
of first and subsequent requests
Source: Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst (IND, 2014) and CBS (2014)/Statline Bevolking Kerncijfers 2013

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

2.3.4 Actual numbers of immigrants

The actual numbers of immigrants are higher than the numbers shown in figures 1 and 2. The
population that is shown in Figure 1 and 2 is an indication of the first-generation immigrants.
First-generation immigrants are individuals who are living in the Netherlands but were born
elsewhere. There is also another group that is considered to be immigrants: second-generation
immigrants. These are individuals who were born in the Netherlands, with at least one parent
who is born elsewhere (CBS, 2014). Other categorizations of first- and second-generation
immigrants are also possible, like western-immigrants / non-western immigrants (CBS, 2014;
Engbersen, Leun, & Boom, 2007; Rusinovic, 2006; Martens & Veenman, 1996; Jansen,
Spronsen, & Willemsen, 2003). Based on the official Dutch statistics (CBS, 2014), Table A in
the Appendix shows specifically which countries are included in either western-countries or non-
western countries. In literature, these categories are usually summarized under the names of parts
of the world. Western countries include all countries in Europe (except Turkey) and North-
America, Oceania, Indonesia and Japan. The non-western countries are including Turkey, the
countries in Africa, South America and Asia (Rusinovic, 2006; Engbersen, Leun, & Boom,
2007).

The actual numbers of the total immigrants, considered the first- and second- generation
together, is shown in Table 1 below. Measured on the 1st of January 2014, of the 16,829,289
people in the Netherlands, 3,594,744 people are considered to be an immigrant. The share of
immigrants is more than 1/5th (21.4 percent) of the total population. According to Figure 1,
constructed by Lucassen and Lucassen (2011), the lowest share of the first-generation
immigrants was in the year 1900 by a small 1.8 percent of the total population. From 1900 till 1
January 2014, the population has multiplied by 3.29 from 5,104,000 people (CBS, 2014) to
16,829,289 people (Table 1), while the first-generation immigrants share has multiplied by 10
from 1,8 percent to 10.81 percent (Table 1). This means that a great share of the Dutch
population growth is because of foreign-born immigrants / first-generation immigrants and their
descendants. According to Table 1, the share of the second-generation immigrants is 10.6 percent
of the total Dutch population on the 1st of January 2014.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Table 1 Demographic developments Dutch population, 1996 – 2014*

1996 2000 2005 2010 2014

Total population 15,493,889 15,863,950 16,305,526 16,574,989 16,829,289

Immigrants (absolute numbers) 2,498,715 13,088,648 3,122,717 3,359,603 3,594,744
Immigrants (percentage) 16.1 17.5 19.2 20.3 21.4

Total first-generation immigrants 1,284,106 1,431,122 1,606,664 1,699,751 1,818,497

Western immigrants 522,554 544,890 582,278 644,486 722,766
Non-Western immigrants, including: 761,552 886,232 1,024,386 1,055,265 1,095,731
Moroccans 140,572 152,540 168,400 167,305 168,320
Antilleans and Aruba 55,808 69,266 82,321 81,175 82,148
Surinamese 179,266 183,249 188,367 185,089 180,863
Turks 167,248 177,754 95,678 196,385 194,759
Other non-Western immigrants 218,658 303,423 389,620 425,311 469,641

Total second-generation immigrants* 1,214,609 1,344,180 1,516,053 1,659,852 1,776,247

Western immigrants 805,048 821,645 841,397 856,823 874,394
Non-Western immigrants, including: 409,561 522,535 674,656 803,029 901,853
Moroccans 84,516 109,681 147,421 181,700 206,676
Antilleans and Aruba 31,016 37,931 48,217 57,245 64,707
Surinamese 101,349 119,265 41,063 157,190 167,428
Turks 104,266 131,136 163,168 187,572 201,655
Other non-Western immigrants 88,414 124,522 174,787 219,322 261,387
Note: * Till 2014, numbers are generated on 21st of October of each year. In 2014 the numbers are generated on the
1st of January.
* Second-generation immigrants were born in the Netherlands, but at least one of their parents was born elsewhere
Source: Based on CBS/Statline Bevolking Kerncijfers 2005 (Rusinovic, 2006) and CBS/Statline Bevolking
Kerncijfers (2014)

So the growth of the Dutch population is for a great part due to the growing number of
immigrants who have migrated to the Netherlands, are still migrating to or are born here.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

2.4 Determinants of entrepreneurship among immigrants

As entrepreneurship is defined in many ways, and many functions have been attributed to it
throughout the years, the determinants that influence the decision of individuals to participate in
entrepreneurship are also dynamic and are still being discovered till now. As explained by the
occupational choice model, the utility derived from entrepreneurship is not only the monetary
benefits that are comparable with wage-employment, but also non-monetary benefits.

So what drives people to engage themselves in entrepreneurship? In the United Kingdom’s

Labour Force Survey (LFS) that was held in 2000 (Parker, 2009), the common given answer for
this question was a non-monetary reason, namely the choice of being independent and choosing
the nature of your occupation. To understand the role of the determinants in entrepreneurship
among immigrants, this study will first looks at the determinants of entrepreneurship in general
and subsequently narrow it down to entrepreneurship among immigrants.

2.4.1 Categories of determinants of entrepreneurship

The determinants of entrepreneurship can be divided in many categories according to different
insights from psychological perspectives, social perspectives, economical perspectives and
demographical perspectives (Jansen, Spronsen, & Willemsen, 2003; Verheul, Wennekers,
Audretsch, & Thurik, 2002). Psychological factors concern the background of the entrepreneur
himself, whereas the sociological and demographical perspective looks at the factors concerning
the demographical composition of a country. The economical perspective looks at the factors of
entrepreneurship, that are being influenced by the economic climate and the economic changes
that influence the costs and yield of production (Grilo & Thurik, 2004; Jansen, Spronsen, &
Willemsen, 2003; Verheul, Wennekers, Audretsch, & Thurik, 2002).

Verheul, Wennekers, Ausdretsch and Thurik (2002) and later Grilo and Thurik (2004) have
considered an eclectic framework in which they explain the origins and different categories to
which the determinants of entrepreneurship can be divided into. In both their studies the
determinant of entrepreneurship can also be categorized according to the micro-, meso- and
macro-level of entrepreneurship. The micro-level determinants of entrepreneurship regard the
basic reasons and motives of individuals for choosing to become an entrepreneur. The important
factors are partly formed by the background of the individual, the family composition and the

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

education level. The meso- level determinants of entrepreneurship concern factors of a specific
sector of industry, profit opportunities and the factors concerning the entry to or exit from a
specific market. At the macro-level, the determinants of entrepreneurship are explained more
form a general environmental view, concerning the technology, the economical state and the
cultural variables (Grilo & Thurik, 2004; Jansen, Spronsen, & Willemsen, 2003; Verheul,
Wennekers, Audretsch, & Thurik, 2002).

Another important framework of the determinants of entrepreneurship is done by Parker (2009)in

his book “The economics of entrepreneurship”. Based on existing literature that includes controls
for other explanatory variables, Parker has made a summary of determinants of entrepreneurship.
In Table 2 the numbers of studies are shown that have researched the specific determinants and
have shown either a significantly positive, significantly negative or insignificant results. As can
be seen, the determinant “immigration” is rather underrepresented in the existing literature.

Table 2 Summary of determinants of entrepreneurship

Source: Parker, The economics of entrepreneurship (2009)

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

2.4.2 Summary of determinants of entrepreneurship

In the next part, the determinants of entrepreneurship will be briefly examined in general, as the
focus lies on entrepreneurship among immigrants and their family composition. This summary of
determinants of entrepreneurship is based on the framework of determinants that Parker has
made in his book ‘The economics of entrepreneurship’ (Parker, 2009) and the fact that this study
is performed on the micro-level, when considering the demographical aspects of
entrepreneurship among immigrant population.

Monetary benefits, independence and risk attitudes

According to the UK’s LFS in 2000 (Parker, 2009) the incentive of earning more money was at
the third place of the most common reasons for choosing for entrepreneurship. However, it is not
clear whether earning a higher income plays a significant role in the choice of becoming an
entrepreneur. While some literature has generated statistically significant positive results (Clark
& Drinkwater, 2000; Taylor, 1996), there is also a lot of literature showing no significance
between the incentive of earning more and becoming an entrepreneur (Rees & Shah, 1986;
Dolton & Makepeace, 1990). What makes it even more peculiar is that there are also examples of
researches where in the first study there was positive and significant association found, but the
same study performed 10 years later did not show any significance anymore (Fraser & Greene,
2006; Parker, 2003).

As said in Section 2.2, according to Knight (1921) and Kirzner (1973), the entrepreneur is a
person who is always alert for exploitation of profitable opportunities. This highlights the fact
that the entrepreneur wants to be his own boss. He has a desire for autonomy or independence to
operate or occupy himself without a higher force telling him what to do. Being able to choose his
or her occupation, makes approximately 46percent of self-employed very satisfied with their job,
while only 29 percent of employees are happy with the jobs they are occupied with in their
wage-labour (Blanchflower & Oswald, 1998)

Just like the pecuniary incentive, there is also no clear significant direction for the different risk
attitudes as risk-aversion, risk-taking or over-confidence. Based on most multivariate analyses as
shown in Table 2 (Parker, 2009), entrepreneurs appear to be more risk taking than the average
employee. Using the revealed preference theory, Van Praag and Cramer (2001) have also found

17
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

significant evidence of Dutch entrepreneurs being more risk taking than employees, but they
only do this when they are assured of strong family ties like marriage and children and good
health (Puri & Robinson, 2005). In other words, entrepreneurs are ‘risk-calculators’. It is also
possible that they just have reacted this way during the answering of the questionnaire. They
might have thought that it was expected from them to be confident of their choices and they have
answered the questionnaire in this way (Coelho, Meza, & Reyniers, 2004).

Technology, knowledge spillover and human capital

According to Blau (1987), improvements and innovations in the methods of production have
driven the growth of the economy. The spread of computers and ICT improvement have made it
possible to get access to advanced and cheap production methods and have caused, among other
things, a growth in the number of self-employed individuals.

Since this also gives a lot of room for knowledge spillovers, researchers have investigated the
rate of small and medium enterprises (SME’s) near universities and corporate research
laboratories. The existing literature shows that there is a significant positive association of
locating knowledge based and technology based ventures next to existing knowledge based
institutes or corporations (Parker, 2009).

This does not only help the new ventures to grow and extend faster, but also more educated
human capital is trained and attracted (Audretsch, Keilbach, & Lehmann, 2006).The gained
experience and knowledge later helps individuals to choose entrepreneurship (Casson, 1995).

According to Light (1984), Yuemgert (1995) and Hammarstedt (2001), experience also plays a
significant role for immigrants to choose entrepreneurship. Using US Census data, these
researchers have found significant evidence for immigrants who already had entrepreneurial
experience in their home country, also become entrepreneurs in the host country. Having access
to cheap and trustworthy workers through low-paid and unpaid family members or members
from their ethnic group, the need for social capital is rather quickly fulfilled. This way, they can
survive the high competition form the existing and almost overfilled markets (Light, 1984;
Rusinovic, 2006).

Based on the existing literature on immigrants, in his book ‘The economics of entrepreneurship’,
Parker (2009) summarizes that immigrants are on average better educated and motivated than

18
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

natives. However, this often does not help immigrants to get access to the same occupations as
the natives do. Besides the unemployment rates of countries, immigrants often get hold back or
discriminated from white-coloured jobs by language barriers, lack of labour market information
and lack of occupational skills that are asked for in the host country (Yoon, 1997; Light, 1984)
(Yoo, 2000). Entrepreneurship is then the alternative to turn to for these immigrants who are
motivated to generate income and get higher up on the economic ladder. This way they do not let
this natural barriers hold them back (Le Espiritu, 1999; Yoon, 1995; Yoo, 2000; Wadhwa,
Rissing, Saxenian, & Gereffi, 2007)

The decision to become an entrepreneur also has advantages for the immigrant. With their
background education, immigrants are often advanced and better skilled in their entrepreneurial
activities like organizing and operating a business, than native entrepreneurs. Furthermore,
entrepreneurs among immigrants have advantages over the native entrepreneurs with the
knowledge and background information about their home country and the communities where
they settle their businesses (Sanders & Nee, 1996; Portes, Haller, & Guarnizo, 2002). According
to Sanders and Nee (1996), entrepreneurs among immigrants also enjoy a higher position in the
social class of their ethnical communities and their home country.

Immigrants who are raised in the host country or second-generation immigrants who are born
here, usually are better educated, at the same level as natives, and integrated better then the first-
generation immigrants (Jansen, Spronsen, & Willemsen, 2003; Lucassen & Lucassen, 2011;
Rusinovic, 2006). While this makes the possibility of them entering wage-employment higher,
according to Jansen, Spronsen and Willemsen (2003), second-generation immigrants are more
likely to enter entrepreneurship than first-generation immigrants (Dagevos & Gesthuizen, 2005).
Where entrepreneurs among first-generation immigrants enter markets that have connections
with their ethnic background, entrepreneurs among second-generation immigrants enter markets
concerning the ICT, finance and real-estate (Baycan-Levent & Nijkamp, 2009) However,
literature on entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants remains scarce.

Demographic characteristics
While it is possible to think that married people which children are less likely willing to take the
risks that are involved with entrepreneurship, in the general entrepreneurship literature the
determinants concerning the demographical characteristics of entrepreneurship, show a

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

significant positive association with entrepreneurship. Three prominent demographic

characteristics of entrepreneurship are health issues, marital status and the family background
(Parker, 2009).

In his study, Quinn (1980) shows that health can have either a positive or negative association
with entrepreneurship. Being an entrepreneur offers greater flexibility in the choice of
occupation, time spent working and the location where the working activity is taking place. For a
lot of individuals with a family and children, as well as people with health problems or
disabilities, entrepreneurship is a then a natural choice. In a sense, entrepreneurship might also
offer a kind of protection from discrimination at work for the disabled.

When looking at the other side of the coin, entrepreneurial activities are rather time taking and
stressful, what might scare this group of people in choosing entrepreneurship. Individuals in poor
health might find it harmful for their health to involve themselves in an entrepreneurial
occupation (Rau, Hoffmann, Metz, Richter, Roesler, & Stephan, 2008; Taris, Guerts, Schaufeli,
Blonk, & Lagerveld, 2008).

Taking care of a family takes a lot of time for both sexes, and literature so far has shown
significant association of the components of family composition with entrepreneurship. For
example, because spouses can provide start-up capital providers (Davidsson & Honig, 2003),
trustworthy workers (Borjas, 1986) and a shoulder-to-cry-on (Brüderl & Preisendörfer, 1998).

Spouses are not the only one who can provide start-up capital. Based on Mexican immigrants
near the US-Mexico border, Mora and Dávila (2006) find even more significant evidence that
immigrants usually settle in places where there are high ethnic concentrations. This provides
them access to resources from their personal equity, their extended family and lenders from their
communities, rather than turning to social resources as banks or the governmental grant
providers. Having strong ties to both their family and ethnical community, gives entrepreneurs
advantages in their pursuit of economical heights. The family and community members do not
only provide cheap or unpaid labour, but also help advancing the business by their mutual
obligations and trust from the solidarity feeling of togetherness (Sanders & Nee, 1996; Jansen,
Spronsen, & Willemsen, 2003).

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

For parents it is also important to spend time with their children. By being an entrepreneur and
working from home they can make a good distribution between time for work, house chores and
childcare. Besides having children who can help out in the family business (Sanders 1996) and
later take over the family business, immigrants with children see entrepreneurship as a strategy
for intergenerational mobility (Zhou, 2004; Raijiman & Tienda, 2000).

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

2.5 Family composition

Based on the facts mentioned above and highlighting the gain of maximized utility in the
occupational choice of entrepreneurs among immigrants, shows that immigrants usually start
their businesses in markets related to their ethnic background such as shops and restaurants.
However, study on this specific topic concerning entrepreneurship among immigrants, is rather
scarce in both international and Dutch literature. Separating the components of family
composition, this study will explore the determinants marriage, divorce and children as
determinants of entrepreneurship among immigrants.

2.5.1 Marriage and entrepreneurship among immigrants

Being married brings a lot of responsibilities, affection, devotedness and willingness to support
your spouse. According to general entrepreneurship literature and the field study that Sanders
and Nee (1996) conducted among Chinese, Korean and Filipino immigrants in Los Angeles in
the year 1996, the family is often seen as the most important social organisation that supports the
setup and managing of a small business. The fact that having a spouse increases the chance of
engaging in entrepreneurship was also researched by Loewen (1988) in his study of Chinese
immigrants in Mississippi. In his book The Mississippi Chinese, Loewen (1988) reviews the
history of Chinese immigrants who first started working as agricultural workers in the cotton
fields and were discriminated and treated as the native black people. However, soon after they
had arrived, these immigrants started leaving the cotton fields to become entrepreneurs in small
business like merchants in grocery. According to Loewen (1988) this was partly due to the
reunion with their wives, who came over from China, and the establishment of new families.
Marriage being a push factor to entrepreneurship was also researched by Baycan-Levent and
Nijkamp (2009) who had found significant evidence of marriage rates to be associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrant Indians in Europe.

According to Borjas (1986) and Bosma, Van Praag, Thurik and de Wit (2004), having a spouse
who can back you up financially, is also positively associated with an individual’s choice for
entrepreneurship. Beside start-up capital, the spouse can provide unpaid or below market-rates
labour such as doing the books, keeping up the accounts, doing the errands or answering the
telephone for their entrepreneur spouses business. Having a spouse who is helping, makes it also
less likely for him or her to shirk or do the job not thoroughly enough compared to a hired

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

employee (Portes & Zhou, 1998). A spouse is trusted to be more productive and careful enough
to handle sensitive transactions of their entrepreneur spouses business (Sanders & Nee, 1996).
As entrepreneurship also provides riskier income than steady wage-jobs, having a spouse who
can also financially support the family is seen as insurance for the husband or wife who is
involved in entrepreneurship (Parker, 2009). Being married also gives certain tax benefits due to
income sharing (Parker, 2009).

Beside the financial and physical support, spouses also provide emotionally supporting their
partner (Brüderl & Preisendörfer, 1998; Bosma, Praag, Thurik, & Wit, 2004; Bogan & Darity Jr,
2008). In his study on Dutch entrepreneurs who had participated in the questionnaire of the
Dutch Chamber of Commerce, Bosma, Van Praag, Thurik and de Wit (2004) investigated among
other things the importance of emotional support of a spouse on the entrepreneurial performance
of their partner. They found significant evidence for entrepreneurs to be earning approximately
40% more income when supported by a spouse, compared to entrepreneurs who did not
experience emotional support

On the other hand, there can also be a lot of knowledge spillover from a husband or wife to their
entrepreneur partner and they can share important information with each other about markets and
organisation of a firm. In his study of entrepreneurship among married couples in the United
States of America, Parker (2008) found significant evidence for knowledge transfer between
spouses to be associated with the business ownership propensity. In their study Jansen, Spronsen
and Willemsen (2003) examine the possible causes for the different rates of entrepreneurship
between ethnic groups and native Dutch population. Based on the empirical analyses of their
study, they found that the most entrepreneurs among immigrants were married or had a girlfriend
/ partner besides them. They find that the odds ratio of being an entrepreneur is 8% higher for
individuals who are married than for unmarried individuals.

The income driven form entrepreneurship together with the financial, emotional and physical
benefits that spouses provide derive a greater utility that makes the immigrant individual to
choose for entrepreneurship. For this reason the following hypothesis is formulated:
H1: Being married as compared to never having been married is positively associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrants.

23
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

2.5.2 Divorce and entrepreneurship among immigrants

There is little known about the association of divorce with entrepreneurship among immigrants.
Although divorce has become a common phenomenon in modern societies, in ethnic societies it
still remains to be taboo and shameful towards the family and ethnic background (Galbraith,
2003; Essers, 2007). In some literature, entrepreneurship is considered to lead to divorce. Based
on Korean entrepreneurs among immigrants in Los Angeles, Min (1993) found significant
evidence for a group of immigrant marriages being destroyed by the negative consequences of
entrepreneurship. These negative consequences are usually marked as the long working hours,
stress and the absence of leisure time for children that lead to family conflicts, wife abuse and
marital problems (Min, 1993; Dyer & Handler, 1994).

While entrepreneurship can lead to divorce, the threat of divorce can also lead to
entrepreneurship. In societies where divorce is seen as a disgrace towards the family name and
future generations of that family, women usually fulfil a central position in the household as a
housewife and caretaker of the children. In the study of Moroccan and Turkish women business
owners in the Netherlands, Essers (2007) researched the motives of these immigrant women for
becoming an entrepreneur. To get a grip on a little freedom in their daily life, these women had
to choose between becoming entrepreneurs instead taking wage-jobs where the chance of
interacting with total strangers would be bigger. However, if their husbands or family were
against them starting their own business, they used tricks as the threat of getting a divorcing if
they were not allowed to do so.

But what happens when ‘the happily ever after’ is over and the couple breaks up and gets
divorced? After a divorce, it is hard for both the male as the female to cope with the break up and
the pressure is even bigger if there are also children present form that marriage (Galbraith, 2003).
According to Galbraith (2003), divorce takes away the safety net of fall backs that marriage had
creates for spouses when entering entrepreneurship. This leaves his influence on the wealth of
the divorced and makes him or her more risk-averse according to the occupational choice model
(Saridakis, Marlow, & Storey, 2013).

Saridakis, Marlow and Storey (2013) performed a study on official time-series data from the
United Kingdom over a 30 year period. In the long run, they found that divorce lowers the rate of
women entrepreneurship. Women are thought to be more severely affected by divorce than men,

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

usually also because they are the ones who get the custody over children. With more
responsibilities to handle as a single parent and or not wanting to cooperate anymore with the ex-
partner, it can be explained by the occupational choice model that the utility obtained from a
spouses support is gone and this makes that the family business is neglected. Eventually it can
get shut down by as well the ex-wife as the ex-husband. On the other hand, ex-couples could be
so mad at each other, that from a feeling of vengeance, one could try to destroy the business of
the ex-partner (Galbraith, 2003).

On the other hand, an example given by Essers (2007) explains that first-generation immigrant
women usually turn to entrepreneurship after a divorce because their family founds them to start
their own business. This way they will be able to survive in the unfamiliar environment that they
have been brought to by their ex-husbands.

Having also the possibility of remarrying and forming new families in the future, gives ex-
partners access to new resources and human capital for becoming an entrepreneur. However,
families disrupted by divorce, loose social bonds between parents and children and this
eventually has a negative association with the family businesses (Aldrich & Cliff, 2003).

The small number of literatures that is available about divorce and entrepreneurship among the
native and immigrant population, shows mixed significant associations. But based on the
occupational model, with the loss of a spouses support, the utility gained for becoming an
entrepreneur, also becomes less. Concerning the fact that divorce influences males and females,
the first hypothesis concerning the determinant divorce is as following:
H2.1: Being divorced as compared to never having been married is negatively associated
with entrepreneurship among immigrants.

Considering the fact that existing literature suggests the wives being more severely affected by a
break-up than their ex-husbands, this study will also look at the specific association of divorce
with entrepreneurship among immigrant women. The hypothesis for this is as following:
H2.2: Being divorced as compared to never having been married is negatively associated
with entrepreneurship among immigrant women.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

2.5.3 Marital status and first- and second-generation differences

There is another gap in the existing literature concerning both marriage and divorce, this time
considering the generational differences of entrepreneurship among immigrants. The existing
literature concerns mostly the integration aspect of both generations into the labour market and
not specifically entrepreneurship (Rusinovic, 2006). According to Rusinovich (2006), although
the chances of second-generation immigrants look better on the labour market compared with
first-generation immigrants, there is growth in entrepreneurship by second-generation
immigrants. These group of immigrants is usually better educated and integrated in the customs
and habits of the receiving country and is suggested to start businesses that need higher
educational bases like finance and real-estate (Jansen, Spronsen, & Willemsen, 2003; Dagevos &
Gesthuizen, 2005; Rusinovic, 2006; Baycan-Levent & Nijkamp, 2009; Lucassen & Lucassen,
2011).

Based on these literatures about entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants and the
occupational choice model that shows gain of utility from a spouse, it can be concluded that for
both first- and second-generation immigrants, the family characteristic marriage is significant
positively associated with entrepreneurship. In case of a divorce, the existing literature speaks of
mixed associations with entrepreneurship among the total population and a negative association
with entrepreneurship among immigrants. Also based on the occupational choice model, with the
disappearance of the gained utility form a spouse divorce is negatively associated with
entrepreneurship among both first- and second-generation immigrants. The hypothesis for the
generation differences will be as following:
H3.1: Being married as compared to never having been married is positively associated
with entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants.

H3.2: Being divorced as compared to never having been married is negatively associated
with entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants.

H3.3: Being married as compared to never having been married is associated with
entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants.

H3.4: Being divorced as compared to never having been married is negatively associated
with entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants.

26
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

2.5.4 Children and entrepreneurship among immigrants

Literature about children and entrepreneurship in general shows mixed associations, but the
literature about having children and its association with entrepreneurship among immigrants is
scarce. There is significant evidence for having children being positively associated with
entrepreneurship (Carr, 1996; Portes & Zhou, 1993; Jansen, Spronsen & Willemsen, 2003). For
parents it is important to choose their own working hours and spend enough time with their
children, but also earn enough income to be able to take care of their family. Furthermore, the
high prices of externally provided childcare like nurseries could drive parents into the choice for
staying at home and taking care of their children themselves. For parents who then still want to
work, the turn to entrepreneurship is a natural choice to be made since it provides more utility for
the parent.

Working on your business can usually be done from home, where the entrepreneur can combine
the house chores, child caring and work all together (Edwards & Field-Hendrey, 2002).
According to Carr (1996), both men and women turn to entrepreneurship but for different
reasons. While women use entrepreneurship to better balance work, household and parenting,
men use entrepreneurship to advance their careers.

The existing literature on entrepreneurship among immigrants and children usually speaks only
about the association with children being raised in an immigrant family and their integration in
the receiving country. According to Portes and Zhou (1993), growing up as an immigrant has
always been difficult. Not only because of cultural and social differences that usually result from
hostility from the natives, but also because of the economic situation that the immigrant family
has. In a later study, Portes and Zhou (1998) have found significant evidence for the number of
children to be positively associated with entrepreneurship among immigrants. While Portes,
Haller and Guarnizo (2002) found no significant evidence, Jansen, Spronsen and Willemsen
(2003) supported the significant positive association in a later study based on entrepreneurship
among the four ethnic groups Turks, Moroccans, Antilleans and Surinamese compared to the
native Dutch entrepreneurs.

While the number of children of almost all researched ethnic groups increases the rate of
entrepreneurship among immigrants, the ethnic group Turks show an opposite association.
According to Jansen, Spronsen and Willemsen (2003) this is because an average Turkish family

27
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

has more children than the other ethnic groups, including the native Dutch families, which
increases the costs and the responsibility for child caring. Since entrepreneurship has higher risks
than wage-employment, families with a lot of children tend to choose for a fixed income through
weight employment.

Based on the available literature concerning children and entrepreneurship in general population
and among immigrants being positively associated, the following hypothesis is formulated for
the fact of having at least one child in the household:

H4.1: Having a child in the household is positively associated with entrepreneurship among
immigrants.

According to immigrant literature child caring in immigrant families is in most ethnic cultures
the responsibility of the wives instead of the husbands. For this reason immigrant women are
thought to be more spending time at home than men are (Essers, 2007). This increases the
probability of entrepreneurship among immigrant women and for this reason the following
hypothesis is formulated:

H4.2: Having a child in the household is positively associated with entrepreneurship among
immigrant women.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

2.5.5 Child age category and entrepreneurship among immigrants

Literature on the child age categories and entrepreneurship among immigrants is also scarce and
mixed. In the families of most immigrant firms, the women and children live as oppressed
workers, but do not consider themselves oppressed (Bonacich, 1987). As mentioned in the
previous sections, in these families the family members are the providers of cheap or unpaid
labour (Sanders & Nee, 1996; Jansen, Spronsen, & Willemsen, 2003; Light, 1984; Rusinovic,
2006). In their study, Sanders and Nee (1996) give an overview of interviews with immigrant
business owners, in which they explain the start-up of their business. Children who are of age of
helping out in their parents business are commonly mentioned to be a potential source of capital
pooling and family labour. Based on their research, Sanders and Nee (1996) conclude that the
presence of teenagers in the household significantly contributes to the parental entrepreneurship
in immigrant families.

Working from home can make the fixed costs of work less and is more attractive for women who
have young children or children with disabilities (Edwards & Field-Hendrey, 2002). According
to Wellington (Wellington, 2006) there is significant positive association with having young
children under the 6 six years and entrepreneurship among women in general population.

On the other hand, having young children gives in general more responsibilities to the parents. In
their study among ethnic minorities in England and Wales, Clark and Drinkwater (Clark &
Drinkwater, 2000) found a significant opposite association with having young children and
entrepreneurship among immigrants. According to them, having young children reduces the
entrepreneurship rate of their parents because of increased responsibilities.

Taking into account that children of younger age versus children who have come of age of doing
some work, can be negatively versus positively associated with the rate of their parents being an
entrepreneur, the following hypotheses are formulated:

H5.1 Having young children (in the age 0-6 years) is negatively associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrants.

H5.2 Having children of the age 18 years and older is positively associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrants.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

According to literature about immigrants, child caring in immigrant families is in most ethnic
cultures the responsibility of the wives instead of the husbands. For this reason immigrant
women are thought to be more spending time at home than men are. In case of having young
children, most of the responsibility is left on the mothers. When the immigrant family does not
have any other family members like grandmothers or grandfather who can take care of the
children, this leaves for the immigrant mothers no choice but not to work and only take care of
the child and the household (Essers, 2007). When the children have come of age, the
responsibilities at home become less for the immigrant mothers and the older children can help
them in starting a business from home (Sanders & Nee, 1996; Jansen, Spronsen, & Willemsen,
2003; Light, 1984; Rusinovic, 2006). For this reason the following hypotheses are formulated:

H5.3 Having young children (in the age 0-6 years) is negatively associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrant women.

H5.4 Having children of the age 18 years and older is positively associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrant women.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

2.5.6 Children and first- and second-generation differences

The association of the determinant children with entrepreneurship among immigrants has only
scarcely been studied in the existing literature. Besides this, there is another gap in the existing
literature concerning the associations of the determinant children with entrepreneurship among
first- and second-generation immigrants separately. The existing literature concerns mostly the
immigrants in general, taking the two generations together not considering the fact that there are
differences between the generations.

First of all, the second generation is better integrated that the first-generation and their behaviour
and attitude are mostly like of that of natives (Rusinovic, 2006; Lucassen & Lucassen, 2011).
According to Rusinovich (2006), although the chances of second-generation immigrants look
better on the labour market compared with first-generation immigrants, there is growth in
entrepreneurship by second-generation immigrants. These group of immigrants is usually better
educated and integrated in the customs and habits of the receiving country and is suggested to
start businesses that need higher educational bases like finance and real-estate (Jansen, Spronsen,
& Willemsen, 2003; Dagevos & Gesthuizen, 2005; Rusinovic, 2006; Baycan-Levent & Nijkamp,
2009; Lucassen & Lucassen, 2011).

The explored literature so far has said the second-generation immigrants to be still too young to
perform study on (Portes & Zhou, 1993; Lucassen & Lucassen, 2011) and so the existing
literature has been mostly finding evidence on new settled immigrants who still had to integrate
in the host environment, generally the first-generation immigrants (Lucassen & Lucassen, 2011).
As mentioned before, the existing literature shows a significant positive association with having
children in the household who either keep the parents at home who then start a business from
home, or provide cheap or unpaid labour and stimulate their parental entrepreneurship in this
way. Child caring of young children takes a lot of time and older children can help out in the
family business either as working force or as provider of information of the native regulations.
For these reasons the following hypotheses are formulated for researching the generational
differences concerning children and entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants:

H6.1: Having a child in the household is positively associated with entrepreneurship among
first-generation immigrants.

31
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

H6.2 Having young children (in the age 0-6 years) is negatively associated with
entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants.

H6.3 Having children of the age 18 years and older is positively associated with
entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants.

As explained in the previous sections, the literature concerning child caring and the different
child age categories are found to have significant associations with entrepreneurship among the
natives (Lucassen & Lucassen, 2011). Based on the existing literature about entrepreneurship
among second-generation immigrants and considering the fact that the second-generation
immigrants can be compared to the native in their actions, the same association considering the
determinants children and entrepreneurship among native should apply to entrepreneurship
among second-generation immigrants. For these reasons the following hypotheses are
formulated for researching the generational differences concerning children and entrepreneurship
among second-generation immigrants:
H7.1: Having a child in the household is positively associated with entrepreneurship among
second-generation immigrants.

H7.2 Having young children (in the age 0-6 years) is negatively associated with
entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants.

H7.3 Having children of the age 18 years and older is positively associated with
entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants.

32
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

3. Dataset and methodology

3.1 Data

3.1.1 Database
This study uses data from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS)
Database (Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010). The LISS panel is the core partner-project between the
following 3 partners: the Measurement and Experimentation in the Social Sciences (MESS), the
official Dutch statistics (CBS, 2014) and the Department of Cross-cultural psychology of the
Faculty of Social Sciences at Tilburg University. These partners also finance the project jointly
(Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010).

The aim of this project is to give researchers the opportunity of making use of the data to enrich
the existing literature by carrying out their own surveys and designing new experiments. All the
data that is published on the website is freely available to academic researchers. To gain access
to the website, one is asked to register himself and later to publish any study that he or she has
done based on the used data’s (Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010).

The year 2014 is the last year of the seven-year –period project (2006 to 2014). The MESS
project has collected and refreshed and updated her data every month for studies in the social
sciences and the financial resources. In October 2010 the LISS panel was extended with a special
sample of immigrant data that was obtained by the official Dutch statistics (CBS, 2014) from the
population register, which was characterized by country of origin of the representatives. The
immigrant households were contacted and asked to participate in the panel by answering
questions about their household. All members of the households of the age 16 years or older,
were asked to participate in the questionnaire. This resulted in the Immigrant panel database
with the latest data collected in September 2011. The total Immigrant panel database consists of
4,288 participants of the age 16-92 with immigrant backgrounds, of which only 2,410 persons
have answered the questions about their origin. The participants, who did not answer the
questions regarding their background, received a missing value. Some of the participants did not
know their country of birth or that of (one of) their parents, or gave an answer that the panel
designers were unable to code and also had to mark it as missing (Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010;
TILCOM, 2013).

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Except the ‘Avars / Background-variables’, the Immigrant panel is a single-wave study which
means that the variables concerning a topic were conducted only once. Panel members were
asked to complete an online questionnaire that took about 15 to 30 minutes in total. If the MESS
immigrant participants did not have a computer and/or Internet connection, they received a
simPC’s and broadband Internet access to be able to participate in the study. For each completed
questionnaire, the panel members got a financial compensation of 15 euros per hour
(Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010; TILCOM, 2013).

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

3.1.2 Dataset
The dataset that is used in this study is conducted from the Immigrant panel database from the
LISS Database. The variables used in this study were selected from the ‘Avars / Background-
variables’ and from the ‘Family and Household’-study. The selected variables concern the
different topics like the background, history, demography, family and household situation of the
participants.

In the Netherlands there are legal provisions and restrictions to protect children. For example,
they are not allowed to work with machines and their school performance should not suffer
under their occupation. In the weekends and on holidays they may perform more work than on
schooldays. From the age of 16 they can perform almost all work types and from 18 years, there
are no limits and they are seen as adults (Rijksoverheid, 2014). Although there are exceptions in
case of a premature pregnancy, according to the national law, Dutch citizens are also only
allowed to get married from the age of 18 years (Rijksoverheid, 2014)

Taking into account that participants younger than 18 years are unlikely to be working, to be
married, to have children and to be separated, a dataset is composed where all the participants are
18 years or older.

The variables form the ‘Family and Household’-study were conducted in March 2011 and the
variables concerning the topic origin were added to the Avars / Background-variables’ in
September 2011. This resulted in 2 datasets of different waves: Wave 1 with background and
family variables from March 2011 and Wave 2 with only background variables from 2011. This
two datasets are merged is such a way that the missing values and coded observations for each
individual were updated with the observations available in the dataset from September 2011.
Then, the merged dataset was formatted for use in this study and the participants who were
missing observation for the dependent variable were dropped out. This resulted in a sample size
of 1.557 immigrant individuals who had answered all the questions that derive the observations
for the variables used in this study for the analyses concerning entrepreneurship among
immigrants in the Netherlands in general.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Generating the dependent variables entrepreneurship among first- and second-generation

immigrants resulted in a sample size of 860 first-generation immigrants and 697 second-
generation immigrants.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

3.2 Variables

3.2.1 Dependent variable entrepreneurship among immigrants

The dependent variable entrepreneurship is a dummy variable that measures if the immigrant
individual is an entrepreneur. It stands for entrepreneurship among the immigrant population in
the Netherlands. The dummy variable takes the value 1 if the individual is an entrepreneur and
the value 0 otherwise. In the analyses the dependent variable is called entrepreneurship among
immigrants and is generated from the background variable occupation. In the questionnaire the
participants were asked to indicate what best described their principal occupation. Individuals
who were either self-employed, were occupied in an autonomous professional, were a freelancer,
owned a company and worked or participated in a general partnership in the family business at
the time the questionnaire was taken, are considered to be an entrepreneur.

This study does not only make a comparison between entrepreneurship and paid-employment: all
other possible occupation choices are referred as the reference category. The other possible
occupation choices are paid employment, job seeker following job loss, first-time job seeker
exempted from job seeking following job loss, attends school or is studying, care taker of the
housekeeping, pensioner ([voluntary] early retirement, old age pension scheme), (partial) work
disability, performer of unpaid work while retaining, unemployment benefiter, performer of
voluntary work, does something else or the participant is too young to have an occupation.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

3.2.2 Independent variables

Marriage
For testing the hypotheses concerning the marital status and entrepreneurship among immigrants,
the variable marital status is used. This variable was a categorical variable that has 3 categories
explaining weather the individual is: (1) married, (2) divorced, separated or widowed and (3)
never been married.

Divorce
The independent variable divorce is an accumulation of the divorced, separated and widowed
immigrant participants. Break up, separation and divorce are considered to be the same. After the
death of the spouse, a widow or widower is less prepared to face the daily life of work,
household and child caring all alone by herself or himself. Although the consequences of
widowhood are more severe, they are considered to be the same as for separation and divorce
(Holden & Kuo, 1996).

Children living in the household

For testing the hypotheses concerning children in the household and entrepreneurship among
immigrants, a dummy variable is generated that measures whether an individual has at least one
child in the household. This variable is called children living in the household and is generated
from the variable number of children of the participant that describes the number of living-at-
home children in the household, children of the household head or his/her partner. The variable
children living in the household takes the value 1 if the participant has one or more children in
his household and 0 if the participant has no children.

Child age categories

For testing the hypotheses concerning the different child age categories and entrepreneurship
among immigrants, a dependent categorical variable is generated that represents the age category
of the participant’s child. In the questionnaire, the participants were asked to fill in the birth year
of each of their children. Taking into account that the participant might have till 15 children, the
variables for each birth year were coded from the birth year of the first child till the birth year of
the fifteenth child. Based on the fact that the questionnaire was held in the year 2011, the age of
the youngest child in the household is generated. This variable is called age category of youngest
child and has 5 categories: (1) participant doesn’t have a child / (2) age of the child is between 0

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

– 6 years, (3) age of the child is between 7 – 12years, (4) age of the child is between 12 – 18
years, (5) the child is older than 18 years.

39
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

3.2.3 Control variables

Besides the dependent and independent variables, this study also uses a couple of control
variables. This is to reduce the cofounding effect of irrelevant variables that are not specifically
being studied in this research. Controlling for these variables means that that specific variable is
being held constant while the association of the independent variables concerning the family
characteristics with the dependent variable are analysed. The control variables are selected based
on the general literature about entrepreneurship among immigrants.

Age
The variable age controls for the association of older people being more likely to become
entrepreneurs than younger people. After a certain age, this association of being an entrepreneur
is less likely. For this reason, the variable age2 (age squared) is used to control for the
hyperbolical association of age turning to be negatively association with entrepreneurship at
some point in the life cycle. From a certain age, old people start being more risk averse to
entrepreneurship. According to Borjas (1986), the first arrivals of an ethnic group were less
likely to become an entrepreneur. The variable age2 is also included to control for the cohort
effect that the older people from a certain ethnic group might have lower rates of
entrepreneurship than the new arrived ones and the second-generation immigrants.

Gender
Given the possibility that men are more likely to become entrepreneurs than women, gender is
also controlled for in the analyses using the variable gender.

Urban
According to the described literature, immigrants use their family members and members of their
ethnic society as resources for the start-up of their businesses. Living in an urban area gives
immigrants more opportunities of finding these resources. The higher mobility and population
density also increases their chances of becoming an entrepreneur. For this reason, this research
also controls for the possible association of living in urban area compared to rural area with
entrepreneurship among immigrants. The variable urban that is used, takes the value 1 if the
population density per squared kilometre (km2) is higher than 1000 individuals. According to
Sanders and Nee (1996) immigrants who arrive without their families or start their families with
natives or individuals of other ethnic groups, can also be compared to common immigrant
families, since they also turn to every resource possible to get what they want. For this reason,

40
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

the variable urban also controls for this associations with the entrepreneurship among
immigrants.

High education
Based on the existing literature on immigrants Parker (2009) summarizes in his book ‘The
economics of entrepreneurship’ that immigrants are on average better educated and motivated
than natives. However they are not aware or accustomed to the native customs, language and
rules and therefore do have problems with entering the labour market. The immigrants who are
well educated or second generation immigrants whose education and integration levels can be
compared with the natives, have a higher chance of becoming an entrepreneur. Because of this,
this study will also control for the association of higher education with entrepreneurship among
immigrants. This control variable is called high education and takes value 1 if the participant has
completed a high education compared to the technical school (HBO) or higher. It takes the value
0 if otherwise. Controlling for this variable also accounts for the true measurement of the level of
education of the participant. Since with only the number of years of education cannot be
measured if someone is really educated, the measurement has been taken into account that
measures the finished education level with a diploma (Long, 2014).

Country of origin
Previous studies in the Netherlands have shown that immigrants from different countries show
different association with entrepreneurship (Jansen, Spronsen, & Willemsen, 2003; Lucassen &
Lucassen, 2011). According to Jansen, Spronsen and Willemsen (2003) each immigrant group
has its own contingency effect on the odds ratio of becoming an entrepreneur compared with the
native Dutch population. Immigrants from Turkey who live in more urbanized areas have a
significantly higher chance of becoming an entrepreneur than the immigrants from Suriname and
the native Dutch. However, the odds ratio of Turkish family members choosing for
entrepreneurship decreases with the number of children present in the household. To control for
this contingency effect, a control variable is used in the analyses of this study that stands for the
country of origin of as well the first- and second-generation immigrant participant. This variable
is a categorical variable with 6 categories: (1) Turkey, (2) Morocco, (3) Netherlands Antilles, (4)
Suriname, (5) Indonesia, (6) other Western origin and (7) other non-Western origin.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Origin
For testing the generational differences between marriage, divorce and entrepreneurship among
immigrants, the dependent variable is divided into entrepreneurship among first- and second-
generation immigrants separately using a restriction based on the variable origin. The variable
origin stands for the background of the participant and is divided in 4 categories: (1) participant
is first generation foreigner with a western background / (2) participant is first generation
foreigner with a non-western western background / (3) participant is second generation foreigner
with a western background / (4) participant is second generation foreigner with a non-western
background.

42
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

3.2.3 Variable definitions and summary statistics

The table 3 below gives an overview of the variables and their definitions that are used in this
research.

Table 3 Definition of variables

Variable Definition
Dependent variable
Entrepreneurship Whether the individual is an entrepreneur (1= yes, 0=no)

Independent variables
Marital status Marital status (1= Married, 2= Divorced/Separated/Widowed,
3= Never been married)

Children living in the household Dummy variable that measures whether there is a child currently in the
household (1=yes, 0=no)

Child age category Age of the youngest child (0 = No children, 1= 0 – 6 years,

2= 7 – 12 years, 3= 13 – 18 years, 4= > 18 years)
Control variables
Age Age of the participant at the time the questionnaire took place

Gender Gender (1= Female, 0= Male)

Urban Dummy variable that measures whether someone lives in an urban area

High Education Dummy variable that measures whether the individual has completed higher
education (HBO or higher) (1=yes, 0=no)

Country of origin This variable stands for the country of origin of the participant (1= Turkey,
2= Morocco, 3= Netherlands Antilles, 4= Suriname, 5= Indonesia, 6= other
Western origin, 7= other non-Western origin)

Origin Background of the participant (1= participant is first generation foreigner

with a western background, 2= participant is first generation foreigner with
a non-western western background, 3= participant is second generation
foreigner with a western background, 4= participant is second generation
foreigner with a non-western background)

Source: Immigrant Panel Data 2011 , Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) Database 2014
(Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010).

For the analyses it is necessary to have a sample size that represents the actual rates of the
measured variables in the Netherlands (Zwan, Hessels, Hoogendoorn, & Vries, 2012). To
explore the dataset used in this study and to find patterns, the summary statistics have been
drawn and are represented in the table 4 below. According to the official Dutch statistics (CBS,
2014), the entrepreneurship rate in the Netherlands is approximately 7.4 percent in the year 2011
(1,214,000 of 16,65,799 individuals). The rate of entrepreneurship among immigrants in the

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

sample used (8 percent) is close to the actual rate of entrepreneurship. This is also the case for
the other variables that are represented in the summary statistics below (CBS, 2014).

Table 4 Summary Statistics

Variable Mean / SD Min Max Observations

percent
Entrepreneurship among immigrants 0.08
0.28 0 1 1557
Entrepreneurship among first-generation 860
immigrants
Entrepreneurship among second-generation 697
immigrants
Marital Status 2.80 1.83 1 3 1557
Married 47.70%
Divorced/Separated/Widowed 14.84%
Never been married 37.46%
Children Living in the Household 0.55 0.50 0 1 1557
Age category of Youngest Child 1.18 1.56 0 5 1169
No Children 55,25%
0–6 13.03%
7 – 12 7.71%
13 – 18 6.38%
> 18 17.62%
Age 42.13 15.33 18 92 1557
Gender 0.52 0.50 0 1 1557
Urban 0.78 0.42 0 1 1557
High education 0.33 0.47 0 1 1557
Country of origin 5.05 1.80 1 7 1557
Turkey 6.49%
Morocco 7.51%
Netherlands Antilles 6.94%
Suriname 8.99%
Indonesia 13.29%
Other Western origin 36.74%
Other non-Western origin 20.04%
Origin 146.27 49.61 1 4 1557
First-generation, western 21.23%
First-generation, non-western 33.98%
Second-generation, western 28.77%
Second-generation, non-western 15.99%
Source: Immigrant Panel Data 2011, Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) Database 2014
(Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010).

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

3.2.4 The correlation test

Correlation of variables or coefficients measures the degree of association between variables and
if the correlation is symmetric. Two variables are correlated if and only if observing the value of
one provides information about the other, and this is also symmetric (Reiss, 2013).

The correlation matrix in Table B in Appendix, displays the correlation coefficients among the
variables used in this research and their significance. For the variable marital status the
correlation is given of the different categories. For the variable origin only the category of first-
generation immigrants is given since the correlation coefficients of the second-generation differ
only with the sign of the coefficient.

The variable country of origin is left out of the correlation test for it is a nominal variable with
seven categories and it is only used as a control variable in the analyses. The correlations that are
significant are the following:

Table 5 Significant correlations between variables

Significant correlations Correlation variables Discussion

from -1 till 1
-0.7017*** Never married & married Moderate negative correlation
***
-0.5150 Age & never married Moderate negative correlation
***
-0.4353 Child age category & never married Weak negative correlation
***
-0.4094 Divorced & married Weak negative correlation
***
-0.3628 Never married & divorced Weak negative correlation
-0.3106*** Age & children living in the household Weak negative correlation
***
-0.2560 First-generation immigrant & never married Very weak negative correlation
***
-0.1257 Urban & married Very weak negative correlation
-0.1127*** Urban & age Very weak negative correlation
***
-0.1127 Urban & age Very weak negative correlation
***
-0.1082 Children living in the household & divorced Very weak negative correlation
-0.0941*** High education & children living in the household Very weak negative correlation
**
-0.0906 urban & child age category Very weak negative correlation
***
-0.0874 children living in the household & never married Very weak negative correlation
**
-0.0652 Gender & age Very weak negative correlation
**
-0.0652 Gender & age Very weak negative correlation
*
-0.0627 Gender & never married Very weak negative correlation
***
-0.0119 Urban & gender Very weak negative correlation

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

-0.0598* High education & divorced Very weak negative correlation

*
0.0590 Gender & children living in the household Very weak positive correlation
*
0.0630 High education and married Very weak positive correlation
**
0.0655 First-generation & children living in the household Very weak positive correlation
**
0.0789 Gender & child age category Very weak positive correlation
***
0.1013 High education & age Very weak positive correlation
0.1018*** First-generation & child age category Very weak positive correlation
***
0.1114 First-generation immigrant & divorced Very weak positive correlation
***
0.1268 Gender & divorced Very weak positive correlation
High education & entrepreneurship among Very weak positive correlation
0.1293***
immigrants
***
0.1353 Urban & never married Very weak positive correlation
***
0.1684 Children living in the household & married Very weak positive correlation
***
0.1742 First-generation immigrant & married Very weak positive correlation
***
0.1835 Child age category & married Very weak positive correlation
***
0.2331 Age & married Very weak positive correlation
Child age category & children living in the Very weak positive correlation
0.2468***
household
***
0.2901 Child age category & divorced Very weak positive correlation
0.5393*** Age & child age category Moderate positive correlation
* ** ***
p < 0.05, p < 0.01, p < 0.001
Source: Immigrant Panel Data 2011, Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) Database 2014
(Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010).

The strongest significant negative correlations in this study are moderate correlations between
never married & married, and age & never married.

The correlation between never married and married shows a significant moderate negative
correlation of 0.7017. This correlations arises by construction, if an individual is in one of the
marital status categories, he cannot be in the other ones, therefor the correlation is negative
between the respective dummies.

The correlation between age and never married shows a significant moderate negative correlation
of 0.5150. According to this correlation, with the participant getting older, means that the
opposite direction is headed for the marital status never married. This can be interpreted as
normal, since older people in the sample are more often married or divorced.

46
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

The strongest significant positive correlation in this study is a moderate correlations between age
& child age category. Having a significant moderate positive correlation of 0.4349 between age
and child age category, means that with the participant getting older, the possibility of having
children in the different age categories increases. This can be interpreted as normal, since
children also get older and the increase of the age of the participant goes together with the
increase of the age of the child.

47
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

3.3 Methodology

A model is needed that measures the association of the determinants of family composition with
entrepreneurship among immigrants. Since the dependant variable is a categorical variable that
takes the value 1 if the individual is an entrepreneur and the value 0 otherwise, the analyses are
performed using logistic regression.

The Logit model is defined as the log of odds and it is linear in the Logit. The full estimated
equation for the latent variable underlying this model - which in this case can be interpreted as
the propensity for being an entrepreneur, has the following formulation:

Y*= 𝛽0+ 𝛽1 𝑥1 + 𝛽2 𝑥2 + … + 𝛽𝑘 𝑥𝑘 + ɛ

From this follows: Pr(y=1|x) = Pr(y*>0|x) = F(𝛽0+ 𝛽1 𝑥1 + 𝛽2 𝑥2 + … + 𝛽𝑘 𝑥𝑘 )

In this model, a unit change of the independent variable 𝑥𝑘 changes the logit with 𝛽𝑘 while all
other variables are held constant. The logit model can only tell something about the sign and the
significance of the variables, but not the magnitude of the association of these variables. To be
able to do so, the average marginal effects need to be calculated.

The considered significance level in all models is 5% (α=0.05). At this significance level the
variables are considered statistically significant when the P values of these variables is lower
than 5% (α=0.05) or in statistics: lower than P>|t|=0.05 The statistical analyses are performed in
the statistical software package Stata, version 2012 (Stata, 2002).

For the analysis of the hypotheses concerning marriage, divorce and entrepreneurship among
immigrants, the category of married and divorced individuals is compared to the individuals who
have never been married at the time that the individuals participated in the questionnaire. The
category of the individuals who have never been married is the reference category in these
models.

Gender differences
For the analysis of the hypotheses concerning the gender differences, for each independent
variable, an interaction term of gender and the independent variable under consideration is
included in the model. The interaction term describes if the simultaneous influence of gender
with the independent variables is additive on the dependent variable entrepreneurship (Cox,

48
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

1984). In this specific study the interaction terms allows the association of, for instance, divorce
with entrepreneurship to differ between males and females. An alternative approach would be to
estimate these associations for males and females separately. However, this yields less efficient
estimates, since the sample size for males and females separately is smaller than when
considered jointly.

Generational differences
For testing the generational differences between marriage, divorce and entrepreneurship among
immigrants, the dependent variable is divided into entrepreneurship among first- and second-
generation immigrants separately using a restriction based on the variable origin. For both first-
and second-generation immigrants, dummies for different countries of origin are included.

In the analyses of entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants, none of the Moroccan

individuals is entrepreneur. Hence, the coefficient estimation procedure for the Moroccan
dummy variable does not converge. To still perform the analyses of second-generation
immigrants in the full dataset of 697 participants, controlling for country of origin, this study
considers the people of the two least frequent origins (i.e., Moroccan or Turkish) to have one
common “country” of origin.

49
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

4. Results

For analysing the association of the determinants of family composition with entrepreneurship
among immigrants a couple of models have been constructed. The models and the associated
hypotheses are discussed hereafter.

4.1 Results hypotheses H1, H2.1 and H2.2 (marital status)

The hypotheses concerning the association of the marital status marriage and divorce, and the
interaction between gender and divorce with entrepreneurship among immigrants, are the
following :
- H1: Being married as compared to never having been married is positively associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrants.
- H2.1: Being divorced as compared to never having been married is negatively associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrants.
- H2.2: Being divorced as compared to never having been married is negatively associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrant women.

In the analyses, the category never married of the variable marital status is used as the base
category. In Table 6 below, the results of hypothesis H1 and H2.1 are shown in the column
Model 1 and the results of hypothesis H2.2 in the column Model 2.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Table 6 Marital status and entrepreneurship among immigrants

(Logit regression models and average marginal effects)

Variables Model 1 Model 1 Model 2 Model 2

(H1, H2.1) Average ((H2.2) Average
Marriage / marginal Interaction marginal
divorce and effect between gender effect
entrepreneurship numbers and divorce on numbers
among entrepreneurship
immigrants among
immigrants
Marital status
Married 0.08 0.0053 -0.13 0.0087
Divorced/Separated/Widowed 0.07 0.0047 0.21 0.0168
Never married (base) (base) (base) (base)
Marital status * Female
Married - - 0.43 0.0306
Divorced/ Separated/Widowed - - -0.19 0.0135
Never Married - - (base) (base)
Age 0.23*** 0.0162 0.23*** 0.0160
Age Square (age^2) -0.00*** 0.0002 -0.00*** 0.0002
Gender -0.34 0.0242 -0.53 0.0373
Urban 0.21 0.0151 0.22 0.0157
Higher Education 0.72** 0.0511 0.73*** 0.0514
Country of origin
Turkey (base) (base) (base) (base)
Morocco -1.23 0.0476 -1.23 0.0477
Netherlands Antilles -0.21 0.0119 -0.24 0.0137
Suriname 0.14 0.0093 0.14 0.0090
Indonesia 0.15 0.0101 0.15 0.0098
Other Western origin 0.49 0.0377 0.49 0.0374
Other non-Western origin -0.11 0.0068 -0.12 0.0074
Constant -7.89*** - -7.77*** -

Observations 1557 1557 1557 1557

Pseudo R2 0.0773 - 0.0793 -
- * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001
- Logit coefficients (average marginal effects) are given with two (four) decimals
Source: Immigrant Panel Data 2011, Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) Database 2014
(Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010), conducted in Stata (2002)

Model 1
The column Model 1 shows the results for the independent variables marriage, divorce and
entrepreneurship among immigrants. According to the results obtained with the Logit model,
Model 1 shows no significant association between the independent variables married or divorced
with entrepreneurship among immigrants. This means that there is no significant evidence for
H1 and H2.1.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

The control variables age, age squared and high education are statistically significant. The
average marginal effects of the significant control variables that can be interpreted ceteris
paribus, are the following:
- Positive association: age 1.6%, high education 5.1%
- Negative association: age square 0.02%

Model 2
The column Model 2 shows the results for the association of the interaction between gender and
divorce with entrepreneurship among immigrants. The column Model 2 shows the results for the
estimated gender differences through an interaction. The column Model 2 shows no significant
association of divorce with entrepreneurship among immigrant women. This means that there is
no significant evidence for H2.2.

The control variables age, age squared and high education are statistically significant. The
average marginal effects of the significant control variables that can be interpreted ceteris
paribus, are the following:
- Positive association: age 1.6%, high education 5.1%
- Negative association: age square 0.02%

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

4.2 Results hypotheses H3.1, H3.2, H3.3 and H3.4 (generation differences)
The hypotheses concerning the determinants of marital status and entrepreneurship among first-
versus versus second-generation immigrants are the following:

- H3.1: Being married as compared to never having been married is positively associated with
entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants.
- H3.2: Being divorced as compared to never having been married is negatively associated with
entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants.
- H3.3: Being married as compared to never having been married is associated with
entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants.
- H3.4: Being divorced as compared to never having been married is negatively associated with
entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants.

The dependent variable that measures the entrepreneurship rate among first-generation
immigrants, has 860 observations .

The dependent variable that measures the entrepreneurship rate among first-generation
immigrants, has 697 observations .

In Table 7, the column Model 3 shows the results for H3.1 and H3.2 and the column Model 4
shows the results for H3.3 and H3.4

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Table 7 Marital status and entrepreneurship among first- and second-generation

immigrants
(Logit regression models and average marginal effects)

Variable Model 3 Model 3 Model 4 Model 4

(H3.1, H3.2) Average (H3.3, H3.4) Average
Marriage / marginal Marriage / marginal
divorce and effect divorce and effect
entrepreneurship numbers entrepreneurship numbers
among first- among second-
generation generation
immigrants immigrants
Marital status
Married -0.27 0.0183 0.57 0.0423
Divorced/Separated/Widowed -0.65 0.0047 0.38 0.0268
Never married (base) (base) (base) (base)
Age 0.23** 0.0151 0.27*** 0.0205
Age Square (age^2) -0.00** 0.0002 -0.00*** 0.0002
Gender -0.45 0.0296 -0.23 0.0174
Urban 0.39 0.0256 0.12 0.0088
Higher Education 0.70** 0.0458 0.81** 0.0608
Country of origin
Turkey (base) (base) (base) (base)
Morocco -0.88 0.0375 (base) (base)
Netherlands Antilles -0.46 0.0233 0.42 0.0265
Suriname 0.05 0.0031 0.79 0.0570
Indonesia -0.46 0.0232 0.26 0.0153
Other Western origin 0.66 0.0522 0.50 0.0325
Other non-Western origin -0.24 0.0130 0.93 0.0712
Constant -7.96*** - -9.21*** -
Observations 860 860 697 697
Pseudo R2 0.0839 - 0.0992 -
- * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001
- Logit coefficients (average marginal effects) are given with two (four) decimals
Source: Immigrant Panel Data 2011, Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) Database 2014
(Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010), conducted in Stata (2002)

Model 3
The column Model 3 shows the results for the independent variables marriage, divorce and
entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants. According to the results obtained with the
Logit model, the column Model 3 shows no significant association between the independent
variables married or divorced with entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants. This
means that there is no significant evidence for H3.1 or for H3.2.

The control variables age, age squared and high education are statistically significant. The
average marginal effects of the significant control variables that can be interpreted ceteris
paribus, are the following:

54
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

- Positive association: age 1.5%, high education 4.6%

- Negative association: age square 0.02%

Model 4
The column Model 4 shows the results for the independent variables marriage, divorce and
entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants. According to the results obtained with
the Logit model, the column Model 4 shows no significant association between the independent
variables married or divorced with entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants. This
means that there is no significant evidence for H3.3 or for H3.4.

The control variables age, age squared and high education are statistically significant. The
average marginal effects of the significant control variables that can be interpreted ceteris
paribus, are the following:
- Positive association: age 2.1%, high education 6.1%
- Negative association: age square 0.02%

55
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

4.3 Results hypotheses H4.1 and H4.2 (children in the household)

The hypotheses concerning the determinant having a child living at home and its association
with entrepreneurship among immigrants and the interaction with gender, are as following:
- H4.1: Having a child in the household is positively associated with entrepreneurship among
immigrants.
- H4.2: Having a child in the household is positively associated with entrepreneurship among
immigrant women.

In Table 8 below, the results of Hypothesis H4.1and H4.2 are respectively shown in the column
Model 5 and the column Model 6.

Table 8 Having children in the household and entrepreneurship among immigrants

(Logit regression models and average marginal effects)

Variable Model 5 Model 6 Model 6 Model 6

(H4.1) Average (H4.2) Average
Children in the marginal Interaction marginal
household effect between gender effect
and numbers (female) and numbers
entrepreneurship children in the
among household on
immigrants entrepreneurship
among
immigrants
Children in the household -0.31 0.0216 -0.22 0.0152
Children in the household * Female - - -0.18 0.0129
Age 0.25*** 0.0177 0.25*** 0.0178
Age Square (age^2) -0.00*** 0.0002 -0.00*** 0.0002
Gender -0.32 0.0228 -0.24 0.0170
Urban 0.19 0.0131 0.19 0.0137
Higher Education 0.71*** 0.0504 0.71*** 0.0500
Country of origin
Turkey (base) (base) (base) (base)
Morocco -1.20 0.0486 -1.19 0.0482
Netherlands Antilles -0.28 0.0160 -0.27 0.0155
Suriname 0.08 0.0056 0.09 0.0060
Indonesia 0.09 0.0060 0.09 0.0062
Other Western origin 0.45 0.0346 0.45 0.0349
Other non-Western origin -0.17 0.0102 -0.16 0.0099
Constant -8.03*** - -8.12*** -
Observations 1557 1557 1557 1557
Pseudo R2 0.0797 - 0.0800 -
- * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001
- Logit coefficients (average marginal effects) are given with two (four) decimals
Source: Immigrant Panel Data 2011, Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) Database 2014
(Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010), conducted in Stata (2002)

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Model 5
The column Model 5 shows the results for the independent variable having children who are
living in the participant’s household and entrepreneurship among immigrants. According to the
results obtained with the Logit model, the column Model 5 shows no significant association of
having children living in the household with the dependent variable entrepreneurship among
immigrants. This means that there is no significant evidence for H4.1.

The control variables age, age squared and high education are statistically significant. The
average marginal effects of the significant control variables that can be interpreted ceteris
paribus, are the following:
- Positive association: age 1.8% , high education 5.0%
- Negative association: age square 0.02%

Model 6
The column Model 6 is created to analyse the association of the observed individual being a
women who has a child living in her household with the probability of being an entrepreneur
among immigrants. The column Model 6 shows no significant association of being female and
having children living in the household with entrepreneurship among immigrants. This means
that there is no significant evidence for H4.2.

The control variables age, age squared and high education are statistically significant. The
average marginal effects of the significant control variables that can be interpreted ceteris
paribus, are the following:
- Positive association: age 1.9%, high education 5.0%
- Negative association: age square 0.02%

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

4.4 Results hypotheses H5.1, H5.2, H5.3 and H5.4 (child age category)
The hypotheses concerning the determinant s having a child who’s age is in the youngest or
oldest child age category (adult children) and its association with entrepreneurship among
immigrants respectively on the entrepreneurship among immigrant women, are as following:
- H5.1 Having young children (in the age 0-6 years) is negatively associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrants.
- H5.2 Having children of the age 18 years and older is positively associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrants.
- H5.3 Having young children (in the age 0-6 years) is negatively associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrant women.
- H5.4 Having children of the age 18 years and older is positively associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrant women.

In Table 9, the results of Hypothesis H5.1and H5.2 are shown in the column Model 7 and the
results of Hypothesis H5.3 and H5.4 are shown in the column Model 8.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Table 9 Age category youngest child and entrepreneurship among immigrants

(Logit regression models and average marginal effects)

Variable Model 7 Model 7 Model 8 Model 8

(H5.1, H5.2) Average (H5.3 and H5.4) Average
Child age marginal Interaction marginal
category and effect between gender effect
entrepreneurship numbers and child age numbers
among category and
immigrants entrepreneurship
among
immigrants
Age category youngest child
No Child (base) (base) (base) (base)
0 – 6 years -0.44 0.0323 -0.30 0.0225
7 – 12 years -0.24 0.0191 -0.25 0.0189
13 – 18 years -0.37 0.0277 -0.79 0.0495
> 18 years -0.04 0.0032 -0.23 0.0208
Age category youngest child * Female
No Child - - (base) (base)
0 – 6 years - - -0.31 0.0221
7 – 12 years - - -0.01 0.0006
13 – 18 years - - 0.57 0.0563
> 18 years - -0.50 0.0333
Age 0.20*** 0.0158 0.21*** 0.0162
Age Square (age^2) -0.00*** 0.0002 -0.00*** 0.0002
Gender -0.28 0.0218 -0.18 0.0142
Urban 0.35 0.0275 0.37 0.0289
Higher Education 0.79*** 0.0614 0.79*** 0.0612
Country of origin
Turkey (base) (base) (base) (base)
Morocco -0.80 0.0409 -0.82 0.0419
Netherlands Antilles -0.49 0.0283 -0.53 0.0305
Suriname 0.21 0.0159 0.19 0.0145
Indonesia -0.08 0.0052 -0.09 0.0060
Other Western origin 0.46 0.0319 0.44 0.0366
Other non-Western origin -0.01 0.0009 0.01 0.0007
Constant -7.06*** - -7.22*** -
Observations 1169 1169 1169 1169
Pseudo R2 0.0644 - 0.0666 -
- * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001
- Logit coefficients (average marginal effects) are given with two (four) decimals
Source: Immigrant Panel Data 2011, Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) Database 2014
(Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010), conducted in Stata (2002)

Model 7
Based on a sample size of 1169 participants with children, the column Model 7 shows the results
for the association of the age of the youngest child being in one of the child-age categories with
entrepreneurship among immigrants. The association of the youngest child having the age
between 0 – 6 years with entrepreneurship among immigrants is negative, but this coefficient is

59
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

not statistically significant at 5% significance level. This means that there is no significant
evidence for H5.1 meaning that having children of the age of 0-6years is not statistically
associated with entrepreneurship among immigrants in general.

The column Model 7 shows further also no significant association of having a child in the oldest
child-age category (the child being 18 years and older) with entrepreneurship among immigrants.
This means that there is no significant evidence for H5.2.

The control variables age, age squared and high education are statistically significant. The
average marginal effects of the significant control variables that can be interpreted ceteris
paribus, are the following:
- Positive association: age 1.6%, high education 6.1%
- Negative association: age square 0.02%

Model 8
The column Model 8 is created to analyse the association of the observed individual being an
immigrant women whose youngest child is in the age 0-6 years with entrepreneurship among
immigrants. The column Model 8 also shows the association of the observed individual being an
immigrant women whose youngest child is years and older with entrepreneurship among
immigrants. Model 8 shows no significant associations of being female and the child age
categories with entrepreneurship among immigrants. This means that there is no significant
evidence for either H5.3 or H5.4.

The control variables age, age squared and high education are statistically significant. The
average marginal effects of the significant control variables that can be interpreted ceteris
paribus, are the following:
- Positive association: age 1.6%, high education 6.1%
- Negative association: age square 0.02%

60
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

4.5 Results hypotheses H6.1, H6.2, H6.3 and H7.1, H7.2, H7.3 (generation differences)
The hypotheses concerning the determinants of children and entrepreneurship among first-
versus second-generation immigrants are the following:
- H6.1: Having a child in the household is positively associated with entrepreneurship among
first-generation immigrants.
- H6.2 Having young children of the age 0-6 years is negatively associated with entrepreneurship among
first-generation immigrants.
- H6.3 Having older children of the age 18 years and older is positively associated with
entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants.
- H7.1: Having a child in the household is positively associated with entrepreneurship among
second-generation immigrants.
- H7.2 Having young children of the age 0-6 years is negatively associated with
entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants.
- H7.3 Having older children of the age 18 years and older is positively associated with
entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants.

In Table 10, the results of hypothesis H6.1 are shown in the column Model 9 and the results of
hypotheses H6.2 and H6.3 in the column Model 10.

In Table 11, the results of hypothesis H7.1 are shown in the column Model 11 and the results of
hypotheses H7.2 and H7.3 in the column Model 12.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Table 10 Having children in the household, the age category youngest child and
entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants
(Logit regression models and average marginal effects)

Variable Model 9 Model 9 Model 10 Model 10

(H6.1) Average (H6.2 and H6.3) Average
Children in the marginal Child age marginal
household and effect category and effect
entrepreneurship numbers entrepreneurship numbers
among first- among first-
generation generation
immigrants immigrants
Children in the household -0.14 0.0093 - -
Age category youngest child
No Child - - (base) (base)
0 – 6 years - - -0.60 0.0372
7 – 12 years - - -0.63 0.0389
13 – 18 years - - 0.14 0.0115
> 18 years - - -0.23 0.0165
Age 0.23** 0.0150 0.17 0.0114
Age Square (age^2) -0.00** 0.0002 -0.00* 0.0002
Gender -0.45 0.0292 -0.44 0.0298
Urban 0.40 0.0265 0.58 0.0390
Higher Education 0.70** 0.0462 0.84** 0.0563
Country of origin
Turkey (base) (base) (base) (base)
Morocco -0.88 0.0367 0.15 0.0061
Netherlands Antilles -0.38 0.0191 -0.77 0.0204
Suriname 0.12 0.0073 0.83 0.0442
Indonesia -0.44 0.0219 0.33 0.0143
Other Western origin 0.67 0.0529 1.21 0.0772
Other non-Western origin -0.21 0.0115 0.51 0.0235
Constant -7.98*** - -7.15*** -
Observations 860 860 650 650
Pseudo R2 0.0827 - 0.0899 -
- * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001
- Logit coefficients (average marginal effects) are given with two (four) decimals
Source: Immigrant Panel Data 2011, Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) Database 2014
(Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010), conducted in Stata (2002)

Model 9
The column Model 9 shows the results for the independent variable having children who are
living in the participant’s household and entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants.
According to the results obtained with the Logit model, the column Model 9 shows no significant
association of having children living in the household with the dependent variable
entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants. This means that there is no significant
evidence for H6.1.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

The control variables age, age squared and high education are statistically significant. The
average marginal effects of the significant control variables that can be interpreted ceteris
paribus, are the following:
- Positive association: age 1.5% , high education 4.6%
- Negative association: age square 0.02%

Model 10
Based on a sample size of 650 participants with children, the column Model 10 shows the results
for the association of the age of the youngest child being in one of the child-age categories with
entrepreneurship among immigrants. The association of the youngest child having in the age 0 –
6 years with entrepreneurship among immigrants is negative, but this coefficient is not
statistically significant at 5% significance level. This means that there is no significant evidence
for H6.2.

The column Model 10 shows further also no significant association of having a child in the
oldest child-age category (the child being 18 years and older) with entrepreneurship among
immigrants. This means that there is no significant evidence for H6.3.

The control variables age, age squared and high education are statistically significant. The
average marginal effects of the significant control variables that can be interpreted ceteris
paribus, are the following:
- Positive association: high education 5.6%
- Negative association: age square 0.02%

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Table 11 Having children in the household, the age category youngest child and
entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants
(Logit regression models and average marginal effects)

Variable Model 11 Model 11 Model 12 Model 12

(H7.1) Average (H7.2 and H7.3) Average
Children in the marginal Child age category marginal
household and effect and entrepreneurship effect
entrepreneurship numbers among second- numbers
among second- generation
generation immigrants
immigrants
Children in the household -0.38 0.0291 - -
Age category youngest child
No Child - - (base) (base)
0 – 6 years - - -0.35 0.0281
7 – 12 years - - 0.22 0.0218
13 – 18 years - - -1.02 0.0643
> 18 years - - 0.31 0.0312
Age 0.31*** 0.0232 0.29*** 0.0255
Age Square (age^2) -0.00*** 0.0142 -0.00*** 0.0002
Gender -0.19 0.0137 -0.18 0.0158
Urban 0.01 0.0008 0.20 0.0177
Higher Education 0.76** 0.0576 0.81** 0.0712
Country of origin
Turkey / Morocco (base) (base) (base) (base)
Netherlands Antilles 0.11 0.0074 -0.01 0.0010
Suriname 0.53 0.0403 0.43 0.0434
Indonesia 0.06 0.0040 -0.44 0.0326
Other Western origin 0.30 0.0206 0.12 0.0105
Other non-Western origin 0.67 0.0539 0.47 0.04887
Constant -9.30*** - -8.71*** -
Observations 697 697 519 519
Pseudo R2 0.0962 - 0.0774 -
- * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001
- Logit coefficients (average marginal effects) are given with two (four) decimals
Source: Immigrant Panel Data 2011, Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) Database 2014
(Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010), conducted in Stata (2002)

Model 11
The column Model 11 shows the results for the independent variable having children in the
household and entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants. According to the results
obtained with the Logit model, the column Model 11 shows no significant association of having
children living in the household with the dependent variable entrepreneurship among second-
generation immigrants. This means that there is no significant evidence for H7.1.

The control variables age, age squared and high education are statistically significant. The
average marginal effects of the significant control variables that can be interpreted ceteris

64
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

paribus, are the following:

- Positive association: age 2.3% , high education 5.8%
- Negative association: age square 0.02%

Model 12
Based on a sample size of 508 participants with children, the column Model 12 shows the results
for the association of the age category of the youngest child being with entrepreneurship among
second-generation immigrants. Having the youngest child in the age between 0 – 6 years or
18years and older shows no significant association with entrepreneurship among second-
generation immigrants. This means that there is no significant evidence for H7.2 and H7.3.

The control variables age, age squared and high education are statistically significant. The
average marginal effects of the significant control variables that can be interpreted ceteris
paribus, are the following:
- Positive association: age 2.6% , high education 7.1%
- Negative association: age square 0.03%

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

4.6 Robustness check

A commonly accepted evidence of structural validity of a research, is the robustness check that
tells weather the coefficients of the regressions that are performed for the analyses, are plausible
and robust. The robustness check examines how certain coefficients behave when some variables
are removed or new variable are added (White & Lu, 2010). To make sure that the performed
analyses of this study are structural valid, first, all Logit regression in the analyses are done with
the command robust in Stata.

As explained in the third section, the data has been adapted to create the dependent variable that
stand for entrepreneurship among immigrants, the independent variables representing the family
characteristics and the control variables. The conducted dataset is a merge of two datasets with
different waves. The robustness check was performed using only the dataset from wave March
2011, so without the variable country of origin. The models for the determinants marital status
and children are regressed again (Models 1, 2, 5, 6, 7 and 8) with the dependent variable
entrepreneurship. The results can be found in tables C, D and E in the Appendix. The results of
this study are confirmed to be robust because the results of the merged dataset and the dataset
with the wave March 2011 show the same results with an exception of Model 2.

With a sample size of 1,557 participants, the Model 2 in the merged dataset does not show a
statistical significant association of the interaction between female and divorce with
entrepreneurship among immigrants. However, Model 2 of the robustness check (dataset without
the variable country of origin) does show a statistical significant positive association of the
interaction between female and divorce with entrepreneurship among immigrants.

The dataset of the robustness check has a bigger sample size of 2,416 participants because the
control variable country of origin is not included in the analyses. This can cause the data to be
biased and for this reason to be showing the significant result.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

5. Discussion

Based on the existing literature, a couple of hypotheses have been made about the association
between family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands.
Study on this topic is rather scarce or does not even exist concerning specifically the
entrepreneurship among immigrant generation differences. According to Dagevos and
Gesthuizen, 2005, second-generation immigrants are more likely to enter entrepreneurship than
first-generation immigrants. In this study, the percentage of entrepreneurs among the second-
generation immigrants is higher than among the first-generation. While only 7.44 percent (64 of
the 860) first-generation immigrants is entrpreneur, this percentage is 8.75 (61 of 697).

However, based on a sample size of 1,557 immigrant participants in the Netherlands, this study
does not find statistical significant evidence for any of its nineteen hypotheses. This study shows
that there is no significant association between the family characteristics marriage, divorce and
children with entrepreneurship among the immigrant population and among the first- and
second-generation immigrants in the Netherlands. Table F in the Appendix shows an overview of
the hypotheses and their results.

5.1 Evidence for marriage and entrepreneurship among immigrants

Existing literature finds evidence for marriage providing utility for spouses to turn to
entrepreneurship. Beside financial support as a safety net, emotional support and cheap or unpaid
labour resource, spouses also support each other with knowledge spillover (Porter & Zhou, 1998;
Parker, 2009; Sanders & Nee, 1996; Brüderl & Preisendörfer, 1998; Bosma, Praag, Thurik, &
Wit, 2004; Bogan & Darity Jr, 2008). According to these literatures, the determinant married of
the family composition has a positive significant association with entrepreneurship among
immigrants in general (H1). This study does not find such an association.

Besides the listed benefits of marriage, the immigrants face barriers such as lack in skills,
language and knowledge and are not accustomed to the native social or labour market customs.
(Jansen, Spronsen, & Willemsen, 2003; Dagevos & Gesthuizen, 2005; Rusinovic, 2006; Baycan-
Levent & Nijkamp, 2009; Lucassen & Lucassen, 2011). For this reason first-generation
immigrants turn to the family as a resource to start their own business (H3.1). For second-
generation immigrants, these barriers do not exist anymore as they can be compared with the

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

natives. Based on the existing literature about entrepreneurship among second-generation

immigrants and the occupational choice model with grown utility from a spouse, it can be
concluded that marriage is also associated with entrepreneurship among second-generation
immigrants (H3.3) (Jansen, Spronsen, & Willemsen, 2003; Dagevos & Gesthuizen, 2005;
Rusinovic, 2006; Essers, 2007; Baycan-Levent & Nijkamp, 2009; Lucassen & Lucassen, 2011)..
This study does not find such an association.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

5.2 Evidence for divorce and entrepreneurship among immigrants

According to the existing literature, divorce has a negative association with entrepreneurship
among immigrants (H2.1). After a divorce, separation and widowhood, it is hard for both sexes
to cope with the break up and the pressure is even bigger if there are also children present form
that marriage. Beside the difficultness to cope with the consequences, the divorced can also
deliberately destroy the business of their ex-husband or –wife (Essers, 2007; Saridakis, Marlow
&Storey, 20013; Galbraith, 2003). An example given by Essers (2007) explains that first-
generation immigrant women usually turn to entrepreneurship after a divorce because their
family founds them to start their own business. This way they will be able to survive in the
unfamiliar environment that they have been brought to by their ex-husbands. Since females in
general are stronger effected by the consequence of a break up, it is assumed that females who
get divorced are even less likely to turn to entrepreneurship (H2.2). This study does not show
significant evidence for divorce being associated with entrepreneurship among immigrants nor
with entrepreneurship among immigrant women specifically.

Based on existing literature about divorce in general, this determinant is assumed to be

negatively associated with also entrepreneurship among first- and second-generation immigrants
(Aldrich & Cliff, 2003) (H3.2 and H3.4). This study does not show significant evidence for
divorce being associated with entrepreneurship among first- and second-generation immigrants.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

5.3 Evidence for children in the household and entrepreneurship among immigrants
Taking care of the children and the household takes a lot of time. To combine house chores,
child caring and work together, parents can choose to work at home. This can be combined with
entrepreneurship where individuals can choose their own working hours. In the literature about
immigrants, family is important in the sense that the family members can provide cheap or
unpaid labour, and this also increases the probability of entrepreneurship among immigrants
(H4.1). Because in immigrant literature the wife has the greatest responsibility for the household
and taking care of the children, a positive association is expected for having a child in the
household and entrepreneurship among immigrants (H4.2). This study however, did not find
significant evidence for an association of having children living in the household with the
dependent variable entrepreneurship among immigrants and entrepreneurship among immigrant
women.

Children are expected to keep parents at home or help out in the family business. Children of age
can either providing cheap or unpaid labour or help the parents with their growing knowledge of
the native regulations as they grow to be more educated and accustomed with the native customs
and rules than their parents (H6.1). This study however, did not find significant evidence for an
association of having children living in the household with the dependent variable
entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants. This association is also not supported with
entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants (H7.1).

Literature so far has also assumed the second-generation immigrants to be too young to perform
studies on and as this study shows, from the 1,557 individuals of the total sample only 650 are
second-generation immigrants. The second-generation immigrants might be not of age as for
already having as much children as the first-generation immigrant in the sample. For this reason,
future study is needed for the determinant children and entrepreneurship among second-
generation immigrants (Sanders & Nee, 1996; Jansen, Spronsen, & Willemsen, 2003; Light,
1984; Rusinovic, 2006; Edwards & Field-Hendrey, 2002).

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

5.4 Evidence for child age category and entrepreneurship among immigrants
As explained before, young children are expected to be keeping parents from their work and not
giving them time to start with an own business. As children get older, the time needed for child
caring becomes less. For parents to then still have enough time for taking care of their children
and also to be able to work entrepreneurship is the preferred occupational choice. While staying
home to take care of young children who need more attention can be negatively associated with
entrepreneurship among immigrants in general (H5.1) having older children in an immigrant
family can also increase the probability of becoming an entrepreneur (H5.2). These older
children, to be exact, can help out in the family business. These findings are not statistically
supported by this study.

Since existing literature so far has been mostly performed on population samples with the biggest
group immigrants being of the first-generation, the same associations of the different child age
categories should apply to them (H6.2 and H6.3) (Wellington, 2006). According to existing
literature, the second-generation immigrants can be compared with the natives and the same
associations of the different child age categories should apply also to them (H7.2 and H7.3).
These findings are not statistically supported by the analyses of this research. For a first- or
second-generation immigrant, having either really young children of the age 0-6 years or older
children of 18 years and older, is significantly not associated with his choice of becoming an
entrepreneur or not.

In immigrant families, the women are the caretakers of children in the household. For this
reason, the assumption is made that having children of the age in either the youngest or oldest
age category, is negatively respectively positively associated with entrepreneurship among
immigrant women (H5.3 and H5.4). However, this study does not show significant evidence for
these assumptions.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

6. Conclusion

Based on the existing scarce literature, a couple of assumptions have been made about the
determinants of family composition and their associations either with entrepreneurship among
immigrants in general or entrepreneurship among first- and second-generation immigrants
separately. The hypotheses formulated in this study based on the existing literature, have not
found statistically significant evidence. However this study can be used as a base for future
research that can be performed to fill the existing literature gap on the topic family composition
and entrepreneurship among immigrants.

The analyses of this study show that marriage and divorce do not have a significant association
with entrepreneurship among immigrants in general. The analyses of this study also show no
gender differences for marriage or divorce being negatively associated with entrepreneurship
among immigrant women. Marriage and divorce are also not significantly associated with
entrepreneurship among first- and second- generation immigrants separately.

This study further shows no significant evidence for having a child in the age 0-6 years or 18
years and older having an association with the dependent variable entrepreneurship among
immigrants in general, immigrant women or first- and second-generation immigrants.

By generating these results, this study tries to fill the existing literature gap on the topic family
characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the general population and among
first- and second-generation immigrants separately. These findings can be used for future study
that is to be performed. Policy makers may want to develop customized rules for taxation and
integration for their immigrant inhabitants, as entrepreneurship is a driver of economic growth.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

7 Limitations and future research

As mentioned before, a great limitation for this study is the lack of existing literature on the
considered topic “family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants”. The empirical
analyses of this study provides no significant evidence for the association of the characteristics
marriage, divorce and children with entrepreneurship among immigrants and with
entrepreneurship among first- and second-generation immigrants. Future study is needed on
family composition and entrepreneurship among immigrants in general and separately among
first- and second-generation immigrants.

The absence of a significant association can be because the strength of the associations are too
weak. On the other hand, although the proportion of self employed in this study is approximately
the same as the actual rate of entrepreneurship in the Netherlands in 2011, the fact that the
sample size is only 1,557 immigrant individuals compared to 3,594,744 immigrant population in
the Netherlands, lowers the external validity of this research. For future research a much bigger
sample size of immigrant population should be considered.

For testing the characteristics of family composition, in future research one should also consider
to have a sample size with a high age average where the chance of being married, divorced and
having children will also be higher.

Literature so far has also assumed the second-generation immigrants to be too young to perform
studies on and as this study shows, from the 1,557 individuals of the total sample only 650 are
second-generation immigrants. The second-generation immigrants might be not of age as for
already having as much children as the first-generation immigrants in the sample. For this
reason, future study is needed for the determinant children and entrepreneurship among second-
generation immigrants (Sanders & Nee, 1996; Jansen, Spronsen, & Willemsen, 2003; Light,
1984; Rusinovic, 2006; Edwards & Field-Hendrey, 2002).

There is also the possibility of a selection bias that might have occurred during the collection of
the questionnaire. For each completed questionnaire, the panel members got a financial
compensation of 15 euros per hour and all members of the households of the age 16 years or
older, were asked to participate in the panel. This fact might have attracted participants who were
in the need of the money and have participated in the questionnaire while not taking it seriously.

73
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

On the other hand, a selection bias might have occurred from the fact that completing the
questionnaire takes 15 till 30 minutes. This might have attracted participants who had a lot of
free time and were not occupied elsewhere, did not have wage-employment or were simply at
home taking care of the children.

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

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9. Appendix

Table A Countries in western and non-western categories by official Dutch Statistics 2014

Western Albania Denmark Italy New-Zeeland Soviet-Union

countries American Virgin
Estonia Japan Niue Spain
(100) islands
Americans Samoa Faeroe Kazakhstan Norfolk Sweden
Federal Republic North Mariana
Andorra Kirgizia Switzerland
Yugoslavia Islands
Antarctica Fiji Kiribati Norway Tadzhikistan
Tokelau-
Armenia Finland Kosovo Palau
islands
Formal Papua-New-
Australia Latvia Tonga
Czechoslovakia Guinea
Formal Turkmenista
Austria Liechtenstein Pitcairn Islands
Yugoslavia: n
Azerbaijan France Lithuania Poland Tuvalu
Belgium French Polynesia Luxemburg Portugal Ukraine
Bosnia- United
Georgia Macedonia Romania
Herzegovina Kingdom
British Virgin United States
Germany Malta Russia
islands of America
USA - Far
Bulgaria Gibraltar Man Russia (old)
islands
Canada Greece Marshall islands Salomon’s islands Uzbekistan
Channel Islands Greenland Micronesia Samoa Vanuatu
Cook Islands Guam Moldavia San Marino Vatican city
Wallis en
Croatia Hungary Monaco Serbia
Futuna
Serbia en
Cyprus Indonesia Montenegro White-Russia
Montenegro
Czech Ireland Nauru Slovakia Yugoslavia
Czechoslovakia Island New-Caledonia Slovenia

Non- Afghanistan Chile Iran Myanmar Singapore

western Algeria Namibia Somalia
countries China Iraq
(147) Angola Colombia Israel Nepal South Africa
Netherlands
Anguilla Ivory Coast
Congo (Republic) Antilles South Korea
Antigua en Netherlands
Costa Rica Jamaica
Barbuda Antilles (old) South Sudan
Netherlands
Argentina Cuba Jordan Antilles Sri Lanka
and Aruba
Aruba Curacao Kadar Nicaragua Sudan
Bahama's Djibouti Kenia Niger Suriname
Bahrein Dominica Kongo Nigeria Swaziland
Dominican
Bangladesh Kuwait North Korea Syria
Republic

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Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected] / [email protected]

Barbados Ecuador Laos Oman Taiwan

Belize Egypt Lebanon Pakistan Tanzania
Benin El Salvador Lesotho Panama Thailand
Bermuda Equatorial Guinea Liberia Paraguay Timor Lester
Bhutan Eritrea Libya Peru Togo
Trinidad en
Ethiopia Macau Philippines
Birma Tobago
Bolivia Falkland Islands Madagascar Puerto Rico Tunisia
Botswana French Guiana Malawi Reunion Turkey
Turks and
Brazil Gabon Malaysia Caicos
Rwanda Islands
British territory
in the Indian Gambia Maldives Uganda
Ocean Saint Helena
Saint Kitts and United Arab
Brunei Ghana
Mali Nevis Emirates
Burkina Faso Grenada Martinique Saint Lucia Uruguay
Burundi Guadeloupe Mauritania Saint Martin Venezuela
Saint Pierre and
Cambodia Guinea Mauritius Miquelon Vietnam
Saint Vincent and
Cameroon Yemen
Guinea-Bissau Mayotte the Grenadines
São Tomé and
Cape Verde
Guyana Mexico Príncipe Zambia
Caribbean
Netherlands Haiti Mongolia Saudi Arabia Zimbabwe
Cayman Islands Honduras Montserrat Senegal
Central African
Republic Hong Kong Morocco Seychelles
Chad India Mozambique Sierra Leone

Source: Based on CBS/Statline Bevolking Kerncijfers (2014)

84
Table B Correlation matrix of the variables used in this study for the general analyses

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)
Variables
(1) entrepreneurship among 1.0000
immigrants (1=yes, 0=no)
(2) marital status: married 0.0370 1.0000
(3) marital status: divorced 0.0010 -0.4094*** 1.0000
***
(4) marital status: never -0.0385 -0.7017 -0.3628*** 1.0000
married
(5) Children living in the -0.0311 0.1684*** -0.1082*** -0.0874*** 1.0000
household (1=yes, 0=no)
(6) child age category -0.0249 0.1835*** 0.2901*** -0.4353*** 0.2468*** 1.0000
(0= no children,
1= 0–6 years,
2= 7–12 years,
3= 13-18 years,
4= > 18 years)
(7) age 0.0439 0.2331*** 0.3546 -0.5150*** -0.3106*** 0.5393*** 1.0000
*** * *
(8) gender (1=female, -0.0418 -0.0356 0.1268 -0.0627 0.0590 0.0789** -0.0652** 1.0000
0=male)
(9) urban (1=yes, 0=no) 0.0059 -0.1257*** -0.0089 0.1353*** -0.0004 -0.0906** -0.1127*** -0.0119*** 1.0000
*** * * *** ***
(10) high education 0.1293 0.0630 -0.0598 -0.0176 -0.0941 -0.0301 0.1013 -0.0190 0.0121 1.0000
(1= yes, 0= no)
(11) origin, 1st generation -0.0240 0.1742*** 0.1114*** -0.2560*** 0.0655** 0.1018*** 0.1593*** 0.0198 0.0466 0.0465 1.0000
immigrant (1=yes, 0=no)
- * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001
- The correlation coefficients are given with 4 decimals
Source: Immigrant Panel Data 2011, Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) Database 2014 (Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010), conducted in Stata
(2002)
Table C Marital status and entrepreneurship among immigrants
(Logit regression models and average marginal effects; dataset without the variable
“country of origin”)

Variable Model 1 Model 1 Model 2 Model 2

(H1, H2.1) Average (H2.2) Average
Marriage / marginal Interaction marginal
divorce and effect between gender effect
entrepreneurship numbers and divorce on numbers
among entrepreneurship
immigrants among
immigrants
Marital status
Married 0.19 0.0138 0.27 0.0192
Divorced/Separated/Widowed 0.35 0.0277 0.71* 0.0610
Never married (base) (base) (base) (base)
Marital status * Female
Married - - -0.49* 0.0393
Divorced/Separated/Widowed - - -1.02 * 0.0677
Never Married - - (base) (base)
Age 0.22*** 0.0169 0.22*** 0.0171
Age Square (age^2) -0.00*** 0.0001 -0.00*** 0.0002
Gender -0.52*** 0.0411 - -
Urban -0.22 0.0172 -0.22 0.0173
Higher Education 0.69*** 0.0542 0.69*** 0.0639
Constant -7.03*** - -7.16*** -

Observations 2416 2416 2416 2416

Pseudo R2 0.0680 - 0.0698 -
- * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001
- Logit coefficients (average marginal effects) are given with two (four) decimals
Source: Immigrant Panel Data 2011, Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) Database 2014
(Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010), conducted in Stata (2002)
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected]

Table D Having children in the household and entrepreneurship among immigrants

(Logit regression models and average marginal effects; dataset without the variable
“country of origin”)

Variable Model 5 Model 5 Model 6 (H4.2) Model 6

(H4.1) Average Interaction Average
Children in the marginal between gender marginal
household effect (female) and effect
and numbers children in the numbers
entrepreneurship household on
among entrepreneurship
immigrants among
immigrants
Children in the household -0.14 0.0106 -0.01 0.0007
Children in the household * - - -0.30 0.0239
Female
Age 0.24*** 0.0186 0.24*** 0.0188
***
Age Square (age^2) -0.00 0.0002 -0.00*** 0.0002
Gender -0.49*** 0.0385 -0.33 0.0255
Urban -0.24 0.0189 -0.24 0.0184
Higher Education 0.66*** 0.0520 0.66*** 0.0515
Constant -7.30*** - -7.41*** -
Observations 2416 2416 2416 2416
Pseudo R2 0.0672 - 0.0679 -
- * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001
- Logit coefficients (average marginal effects) are given with two (four) decimals
Source: Immigrant Panel Data 2011, Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) Database 2014
(Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010), conducted in Stata (2002)

87
Family characteristics and entrepreneurship among immigrants in the Netherlands A.A. Grigorian
Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2014 [email protected]

Table E Age category youngest child and entrepreneurship among immigrants

(Logit regression models and average marginal effects; dataset without the variable
“country of origin”)

Variable Model 7 Model 7 Model 8 Model 8

(H5.1, H5.2) Average (H5.3 and H5.4) Average
Child age marginal Interaction marginal
category and effect between gender effect
entrepreneurship numbers and child age numbers
among category and
immigrants entrepreneurship
among
immigrants
Age category youngest child
No Child (base) (base) (base) (base)
0 – 6 years -0.58 0.0428 -0.52 0.0394
7 – 12 years -0.29 0.0239 -0.42 0.0331
13 – 18 years -0.42 0.0327 -0.66 0.0476
> 18 years -0.35 0.0280 -0.22 0.0185
Age category youngest child * Female
No Child - - -0.12 (base)
0 – 6 years - - 0.26 0.0092
7 – 12 years - - 0.38 0.0234
13 – 18 years - - -0.26 0.0353
> 18 years - 0.0184
Age 0.17*** 0.0139 0.18 *** 0.0140
Age Square (age^2) -0.00*** 0.0001 -0.00*** 0.0001
Gender -0.32 0.0256 -0.32 0.0251
Urban 0.10 0.0082 -0.10 0.0076
Higher Education 0.79*** 0.06338 0.80*** 0.0638
Constant -6.06*** - -6.11 *** -
Observations 1481 1481 1481 1481
Pseudo R2 0.0502 - 0.0511 -
- * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001
- Logit coefficients (average marginal effects) are given with two (four) decimals
Source: Immigrant Panel Data 2011, Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) Database 2014
(Scherpenzeel & Das, 2010), conducted in Stata (2002)

88
Table F Overview of the researched hypotheses in this study and their outcomes

Hypotheses Significant
evidence
H1: Being married as compared to never having been married is positively associated with entrepreneurship among immigrants. no
H2.1: Being divorced as compared to never having been married is negatively associated with entrepreneurship among immigrants. no
H2.2: Being divorced as compared to never having been married is negatively associated with entrepreneurship among immigrant women. no
H3.1: Being married as compared to never having been married is positively associated with entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants. no
H3.2: Being divorced as compared to never having been married is negatively associated with entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants. no
H3.3: Being married as compared to never having been married is associated with entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants. no
H3.4: Being divorced as compared to never having been married is negatively associated with entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants. no
H4.1: Having a child in the household is positively associated with entrepreneurship among immigrants. no
H4.2: Having a child in the household is positively associated with entrepreneurship among immigrant women. no
H5.1 Having young children (in the age 0-6 years) is negatively associated with entrepreneurship among immigrants. no
H5.2 Having children of the age 18 years and older is positively associated with entrepreneurship among immigrants. no
H5.3 Having young children (in the age 0-6 years) is negatively associated with entrepreneurship among immigrant women. no
H5.4 Having children of the age 18 years and older is positively associated with entrepreneurship among immigrant women. no
H6.1: Having a child in the household is positively associated with entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants. no
H6.2 Having young children (in the age 0-6 years) is negatively associated with entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants. no
H6.3 Having children of the age 18 years and older is positively associated with entrepreneurship among first-generation immigrants. no
H7.1: Having a child in the household is positively associated with entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants. no
H7.2 Having young children (in the age 0-6 years) is negatively associated with entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants. no
H7.3 Having children of the age 18 years and older is positively associated with entrepreneurship among second-generation immigrants. no