Immigration and Women by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Emigration & Immigration, Women's Studies
ISBN: 9780814768778
Google: A_WgBwAAQBAJ
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2011-05-23T04:24:19+00:00

Reflections and Policy Recommendations

Economists pay attention to entrepreneurship trends because history has shown us that new start-ups are critical to a society’s economic development. In the United States, for example, many entrepreneurial ventures eventually become the small- and medium-sized businesses that employ most Americans; this fact alone indicates that such businesses form a bedrock for the U.S. economy. More specifically, economists report that a steady stream of new business start-ups is good for economic flows because the newer and smaller businesses have more growth potential than those that are older and established. Among other advantages to new business start-ups are their tendency to draw on local resources and to serve the local community. Given the mounting anxieties over the vast—and rising—number of jobs and services that are “outsourced” to other countries, leaving whole communities with sudden downward plunges in employment rates, locally based enterprises may—potentially—offer some hope for a countertrend. The full picture is much more complicated, of course, as some of those new businesses—including those run by immigrant women—are finding the need to outsource their work in order to remain competitive. Those with employees in other countries often frame this arrangement as contributing to those countries’ economies.

How might more public visibility of these women’s economic contributions counter the “invisibility” that these women reported when they went to banks for a loan? Maureen Bunyan, a leading Washington, DC–area broadcast news anchor, who moderated the “Citizens by Choice” panel on which three of these women participated in 2008, admitted to her own recent learning curve on how active immigrant women are in business ownership. As she stated publicly,

I was surprised to read your writing29 and the fact that immigrant women business owners are growing. The numbers are growing, but nobody seems to know about them. We, in the media, certainly have done a lot of stories, and many of the stories focus on day laborers. And I have done stories like that. And you see the reporter standing in front of this long line of men who are usually Latinos, and they’re waiting for jobs. And there’s political controversy.

The women we interviewed were adamantly forthcoming with advice and suggestions to assist immigrant women in their business development. Among the most frequently cited challenges to these women’s business startups was the early phase—from obtaining the needed capital to bureaucratic and other hurdles that made the process difficult. Repeatedly, these women emphasized entrepreneurs’ need for good information. Several women have requested good details about regulations, as these can be confusing; additionally, there is a panoply of local, state, and federal laws to learn.

The integration of more immigrant women into decision-making bodies related to start-ups, set-asides, venture capital, and business associations would help raise awareness of the continued challenges and needs that are specific to immigrant women. Since discrimination and workplace equity issues force some of these women out of the conventional labor market, it is clear that the established business world is in need of further progress on these issues. The fact that

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