Mexican Entrepreneurship: A Comparison of Self-Employment in Mexico and the United States

Nearly a quarter of Mexicos workforce is self-employed. But in the U.S. rates of self employment among Mexican Americans are only 6 percent, about half the rate among non-Latino whites. Using data from the Mexican and U.S. population census, the authors show that neither industrial composition nor differences in the age and education of Mexican born populations residing in Mexico and the U.S. accounts for the differences in the self employment rates in the two countries.