Title: Ethnic enclaves or middleman minority? Regional patterns of ethnic minority entrepreneurship in Britain

Authors: David McEvoy, Khalid Hafeez

Addresses: School of Management, University of Bradford, Emm Lane, BD9 4JL Bradford, UK. ' The York Management School, The University of York, Heslington, YO10 5DD York, UK

Abstract: In public debate higher levels of self-employment among some ethnic communities are often celebrated as a manifestation of success. Regional economic development is a long-standing issue in British public policy, with the South-Eastern regions of England enjoying greater long-run prosperity than Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the other parts of England. The regional distribution of five entrepreneurial minorities in England and Wales is described. We test hypotheses derived from the middleman minority theory and the ethnic enclave model and find that self-employment in these groups is inversely related to minority share in the regional economically active population. The sectoral diversity of minority enterprises is positively related to their share in the regional economically active population.

Keywords: economic activity; economic diversity index; ethnic enclave model; ethnic minorities; middleman minority theory; regions; self-employment; entrepreneurship; UK; United Kingdom; ethnic communities; ethnic entrepreneurs; England; Wales; entrepreneurial minorities.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBG.2009.021634

International Journal of Business and Globalisation, 2009 Vol.3 No.1, pp.94 - 110

Published online: 30 Nov 2008 *

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