Immigrant self employment: the price of a shut door.
Immigrant self employment research is where the blocked mobility idea was built. Work by Rebeca Raijman and Marta Tienda in 2000 found Korean immigrants saw self-employment as the price of immigration. So the mechanism is real, but you should borrow it with humility.
Immigrant self employment as a price, not an opportunity.
The blocked door idea came from studying immigrant self employment, not people like you. You arrive somewhere new, and the labour market will not have you at your worth. So you open something of your own. Then your children get the life you were qualified for and never had. In short, the first generation paid a price.
What the wall was really made of.
The blocked mobility idea described people with genuinely no alternative. Their wall was made of discrimination, language and credentials that do not transfer. That is the purest form of this chapter's subject. However, it is also a warning. You may be borrowing that frame for a ceiling you can probably see over.
Use the mechanism, keep the humility.
Use it anyway, because the mechanism is real and does not care about circumstances. But hold it lightly. Being unable to advance is not the same as being unable to work. Therefore the honest question is which of those two is happening to you. Since the answer shapes your plan, write it down plainly.
Measure your ceiling against immigrant self employment.
Write whether you are unable to advance or unable to work, in one sentence.
List the real walls you face, then mark the ones you can see over.
From the book.
That is the purest form of what this chapter is about, and it's also a warning about how you use it. The blocked mobility idea was built to describe people with genuinely no alternative, facing an actual wall made of discrimination and language and credentials that don't transfer. You're borrowing a frame designed for that, and applying it to a ceiling you can probably see over.
I Want to Start a Business but I Can't Quit My Job, chapter 5: Stuck is not the same as ready
Questions about immigrant self employment.
What does immigrant self employment teach about blocked doors?
It shows people opening businesses when the labour market will not value them, paying a price for their children.
Can I apply this idea to my own job?
Yes, because the mechanism is real. But your ceiling is probably one you can see over.
Who studied this?
Rebeca Raijman and Marta Tienda published work in 2000 on immigrant self-employment, including Korean immigrants.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 5, “Stuck is not the same as ready”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Passed over for promotion: when skill is not the issue.
- 02 Opportunity vs necessity entrepreneurship: why it broke.
- 03 Test the job market: apply for three jobs.
- 04 Blocked mobility entrepreneurship: the three doors.
- 05 Why do employees really quit: the shock that starts it.
- 06 Nietzsche on work: the best policeman.
- 07 Immigrant self employment: the price of a shut door.
- 08 Running away from your job: does it disqualify you.