Migrant Employment in the Ethnic Economy: Why Do Some Migrants Become Ethnic Entrepreneurs and Others Co-Ethnic Workers?

Polish migrants who migrated to the UK in the post-2004 period constructed Polish ethnic economies with the Polish entrepreneurs largely using the surrounding ethnic economy to provide their co-ethnic workers. Through exploring the range of motivations and characteristics of those Polish migrants that became ethnic entrepreneurs and co-ethnic workers, this paper will focus on the variations between these ethnic economy-embedded actors, particularly: why do some migrants become ethnic entrepreneurs and other migrants become their co-ethnic workers? Using data acquired through semi-structured interviews with Polish migrants in Cardiff in 2008 and 2011, trajectories have been constructed which focus on the changing motivations and characteristics of these migrants over time. From the findings, the migrants’ acquisition of human capital in the destination country coupled with the migrants’ social network usage are the main differences between those migrants that chose ethnic entrepreneurship and those migrants that chose co-ethnic employment. These findings are pertinent to the policy discussion at the national level and the supranational level in regard to both migrant self-employment and the integration of European migrants.