Today’s Immigrant Women Entrepreneur.

Immigrant women entrepreneurs are rapidly making their mark in the U.S. business sector, in every region of the country and across a large range of industries. Today, immigrant women of the post-1960s wave of immigration comprise one of the fastest growing groups of business owners in the United States. This study examines the rise of immigrant women entrepreneurs and profiles them as a group using data from the 2000 Decennial Census and other sources.

Among the findings in this report:

In 2000, 8.3 percent of employed immigrant women were business owners, compared to 6.2 percent of employed native-born women.

The number of immigrant women business owners has increased nearly 190 percent since 1990 and 468 percent since 1980.
The largest group of immigrant women entrepreneurs in the United States – 234,454 or 41.6 percent of the total – comes from the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean. The second largest group – 165,483 or 29.4 percent of the total – comes from Asia and the Pacific Islands.

Among the top ten countries from which immigrant women entrepreneurs in the United States originate, three are in Latin America (Mexico, El Salvador, and Cuba), five in Asia and the Pacific Islands (Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, China, and India), and the remaining two are Germany and Canada.

The top industry for immigrant women business owners is work in private households, followed by child day care centers, and restaurants and other food services. Nineteen of the top twenty industries in which these entrepreneurs work are service industries.

Two of the top service industries for immigrant women business owners—1) real estate and 2) management, scientific and technical consulting services—are professions where the potential for earnings is much higher than in many other service industries.

In addition to the 563,814 immigrant women business owners, 1,054 immigrant women across the United States are CEOs of not-for-profit organizations.

The top ten cities where immigrant women business owners work are distributed across the U.S. Northeast, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest. The most popular destination is the Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County metropolitan area, which hosts 74,134 immigrant women entrepreneurs, or 13 percent of all immigrant women entrepreneurs in the nation.
Introduction

One of the driving forces in the U.S. economy during the past decade has been the increasing rate of business ownership among women. NOTE 1 Although business entrepreneurship is on the rise among women of all ethnic groups, foreign-born women of the post-1960s wave of immigration are notable contributors to this trend. Today, immigrant women comprise one of the fastest growing groups of business owners in the United States. Although they represent a small portion of women’s business ownership overall, immigrant women are more likely than non-immigrant women to own their own businesses. According to the 2000 Decennial Census, 8.3 percent of all employed immigrant women were business owners, in contrast to 6.2 percent of employed native-born women. NOTE 2 This represents a nearly 190 percent increase in immigrant women business owners since 1990, and a 468 percent increase since 1980. Immigrant women entrepreneurs represent a potential source of continued new business growth that brings a broad range of international skills to the work force.

This study examines the rise of immigrant women entrepreneurs and profiles them as a group. Who are they? From what parts of the world do they hail? Where are their businesses located, and what types of businesses are they starting? How are they contributing to the U.S. economy? The report follows the definition of “entrepreneur” offered by Andrea Smith-Hunter as “an individual who perceives an opportunity and partakes in the necessary functions, activities, and actions associated with the creation of an organization to pursue that opportunity.” NOTE 3 Although there are distinctions between the concepts of “entrepreneur” and “business owner,” the two are used interchangeably here to describe an individual who owns and operates an enterprise that she founded or co-founded.

The national profile of immigrant women business owners is based upon data from the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources. Completing this profile is information from interviews with twenty immigrant women entrepreneurs in the Baltimore, Maryland – Washington, DC corridor. Eight of those women were interviewed in-depth. These eight women hailed from Ecuador, Gabon, Ghana, India, Jamaica, Peru, Poland (via Germany), and Vietnam. They represent the industries of hair-braiding, import fashion retail, real estate, health care, fashion design, restaurants, and law. NOTE 4 The Baltimore-Washington corridor is the fourth most popular place of work for immigrant women entrepreneurs in the country NOTE 5 and has the highest proportion of immigrant workers hailing from Africa of any major metropolitan area in the country. NOTE 6 In addition, Washington, DC currently represents one of the top emerging gateways for new immigrants to the United States. NOTE 7

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