Ethnic Economies in Metropolitan Regions: Miami and Beyond

Abstract

T7is article surveys the labor market status of racial and ethnic groups in seventeen metropolitan areas. Five Asian groups (Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, and Asian Indians) and three Hispanic groups (Cubans, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans) are coniipared to non-Hispanic whites and blacks. Minority business concentrations are found niostly in a few low-wage sectors with low capitalization, low levels of unionization, and high proportions of femiiale employees. Patterns of economic incorporation meeting a minimal definition of an economy are identified for several groups. Of these, the Cuban economy in Miami (along with Japanese in Honolulu and Koreans in Los Angeles) is unusual in terms of both size and sectoral diversity; the typical enclave appears to be based on a combination of apparel manufacturing and ethnicfoods. We study the incorporation of racial and ethnic minorities into the United States economy as of 1980. We begin with questions framed at the level of the country as a whole. In what parts of the economy is business ownership especially common for each minority group? What distinguishes those sectors in which whites predominate from those in which minority owners are strongly represented? We then turn to analyses of patterns of incorporation of specific groups in those metropolitan areas that have large numbers of group members. It is in these local analyses that we may expect to find ethnic economies, i.e., distinctive constellations of business ownership and/or employment of group members in certain economic sectors. We describe the contours of these ethnic economies, comparing them across minority groups and metropolitan regions.