Over the last two decades, the number of self-employed foreigners has risen by around three times the percentage of Germans. Today, every sixth person in Germany with an entrepreneurial commitment has a migration background. This corresponds to three quarters of a million. However, relatively little is known about the social characteristics of self-employed migrants and the economic significance of their businesses. In the public perception, they are often associated with kebab and vegetable stores as well as necessity start-ups and subsistence economy activities. However, the empirical findings of the ifm indicate that the proportion of migrant businesses operating in the hospitality and retail sectors has been falling for years, while the importance of knowledge-intensive services is growing and the “ethnic economy” now accounts for around 2 million jobs and a growing number of training places. A significant proportion of ifm research has therefore focused primarily on the characteristics and performance potential of migrant companies and, for example, customer and employment structures, and has also examined the extent of willingness to train and the determinants of the development of skilled workers.
Additional attention should be paid to the connection between self-employment and social integration and thus the question of what significance starting a business has for people with a migrant background in terms of the possibility of improved social positioning and economic participation. Various ifm studies show that the path to self-employment – not everywhere, but predominantly – improves the chance of social advancement and thus integration opportunities. Important indicators for this are integration in the labor market, higher income opportunities and the adequate use of qualifications.
However, the causes and social conditions of the start-up boom are also of academic interest. At least in economic and social research at an international level, the search for the driving forces and characteristics of ethnic entrepreneurship has a firm place. The roots of this field of research go back to Max Weber and his work on the role of religious minorities. This brought to the fore the question of how economic activity is influenced not only by individual abilities but also by group-specific socio-cultural characteristics. It is sometimes assumed that entrepreneurially ambitious migrants compensate for their lack of educational capital with ethnic and social capital. However, ifm research results show that the use of individual or class resources and the mobilization of ethnic group resources are not contradictory, but that the success of migrant entrepreneurship lies in the combination of both.
The migrant economy in Germany is currently experiencing new impetus. The declining proportion of self-employed persons from the former recruitment countries and the influx of new and better educated immigrant groups, especially from Central and Eastern Europe and the Near and Middle East, are changing not only the characteristics but also the development conditions of migrant self-employment. This not only induces new research questions, but also the obligation to constantly review the state of research.
A fundamental prerequisite for in-depth analyses in this area is representative and meaningful data that allows differentiation according to occupational positions, social and economic characteristics and the ethnic origin or migration background of the actors. Through years of empirical research work, the ifm has built up a profound database consisting of official and scientific data and, above all, a large number of its own surveys, allowing both descriptive and multivariate data analyses.