Immigrant youth: The role of familism and intergenerational attitudes on self-employment

Our study utilizes the theory of planned behavior and the theory of basic human values to consider values and familial support as predictors of self-employment. We study this as reflected through familism and intergenerational attitudes among second-generation immigrants. Using a sample of 734 (621 employed and 113 self-employed participants) young individuals (18–25 years) from the three waves of ILSEG data (ILSEG is the Spanish acronym for Investigacion Longitudinal de la Segunda Generacion, Longitudinal Study of the Second Generation), we do not find support that familism is related to self-employment. However, we find that intergenerational attitudes are positively, but marginally, related to self-employment and that these attitudes strengthen the association between familism and the odds of self-employment. We discuss the implications of these findings and the importance of understanding immigrant self-employment.