Spatial Assimilation and Self-Employment: The Case of Black Americans

Residential segregation has played a central role in theories of minority entrepreneurship. This study integrates two theories in the extant literature on minorities and urban areas (spatial assimilation theory and labor market disadvantage theory); and tests a hypothesis on the self-employment likelihood of black Americans. Descriptive statistics indicate a negative relationship between black-white segregation and increasing socioeconomic status (SES), although blacks remain considerably residentially segregated from whites of similar SES. The model results indicate that, after controlling for a number of factors, segregation of high SES blacks and whites in a metropolitan area is associated with higher likelihood of black self-employment.