ABSTRACT
A recurring theme in the study of the Chinese diaspora is why Chinese overseas have an apparent tendency towards entrepreneurship and self-employment. The historical position of the Chinese, as middleman minorities in Southeast Asia and as marginalized minorities in North America, provides the context for understanding Chinese entrepreneurship. More recently, globalization is believed to have reinforced ethnic transnationalism, which in turn has enabled Chinese overseas to mobilize ethnic ties to promote business opportunities. Thus far, the preferred explanation is a cultural resilience argument which stresses the ability of ethnic Chinese to convert family values and affinal relations to instrumental networks for business development. There has been little empirical research to explore the more fundamental question of whether Chinese overseas are indeed more inclined towards business ownership than are other groups. This chapter is an attempt to use the case of Chinese in Canada to study the recent changes in the class locations of Chinese Canadians, and to assess whether they have a greater propensity to business ownership than other Canadians.
