Penalizzazione etnica e occupazione indipendente : alcune evidenze sul caso italiano

Differently from many older migration countries, in Italy immigrants are disadvantaged in the access to self-employment when compared to natives. To understand this outcome, the high rate of native self-employment and the role that self-employment has traditionally played for low-educated workers has to be considered. Following the ethnic penalty literature, the article compares male native and immigrant self-employment probabilities and discusses the role of education, years since migration and the country of origin. All three variables are rele-vant in the frame of ever-lower chances to be self-employed for immi-grants. Education and years since migration seem to suggest a positive selection of immigrant self-employed. Differences by origin seem re-lated to the ethnic penalization in the labour market of the different groups. Once again, the Italian case proves interesting to confront with traditional hypotheses on immigrants' economic incorporation. [Publisher's text].