African immigrants self-employment journey: navigating contextual challenges in South Africa

Abstract

PurposeThe study explores experiences of African immigrants in their self-employment journey. South Africa has been receiving many African immigrants seeking for socio-economic survival. This presents a gap to understand the self-employment journey of such immigrants post-settlement.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative inquiry is used with semi-structured interviews using a sample of African immigrants based in South Africa. Narrative enquiry was utilised in trying to understand the African immigrant self-employment journey.FindingsThe findings show strategies used by African immigrant entrepreneurs in their self-employment journey. These include immigrant relying on established relationships to respond to contextual challenges. Further, immigrant entrepreneurs turned to borrowing from family, including personal savings and using fronts as a capital generation strategy.Originality/valueBased on the findings strategies are suggested as a useful precursor in advancing understanding of the African immigrant self-employment journey. This becomes useful especially considering ideals for assisting post-settlement of migrants.

Perceived risks, challenges and coping strategies among West African immigrant entrepreneurs in Ghana

“…[ 36 ] indicates that the complexities of itinerant traders relate more to a lack of business skills, crime, conflict with native traders, police harassment and storage problems. The findings of this study also controvert what [ 14 ] observed among African immigrant entrepreneurs in South Africa, where they encountered bottlenecks connected with institutional factors. This is because, although some of these challenges came up in the study, they did not feature as strong obstacles or risks in the immigrants’ business operations.…”

“…Participants unanimously indicated that they had difficulty renting accommodation due to high rental charges in the city, which, in their view, led to overcrowded dwellings. These findings are said to be in tandem with what [ 14 ], and the [ 21 ] described in their study: that most immigrants, upon arrival at their destination, meet serious problems in accessing decent housing and are generally compelled to live in squalor conditions. The present findings relating to the immigrants' accommodation challenges could have dire health repercussions, including outbreaks of diseases such as Cerebrospinal Meningitis and tuberculosis.…”

“…Relatedly, from South Africa, some evidence has revealed that the challenges of immigrant traders relate more to a lack of business acumen, crime, conflict with rival native traders, police harassment, storage problems and absence of recognition for immigrant entrepreneurs as key economic actors [ 36 , 37 ]. These viewpoints are somewhat in sync with what [ 14 ] and the [ 21 ] noted in their studies where institutional factors relative to non-institutional ones dominated the challenges associated with the business operations of many immigrant traders in South Africa. They identified hindrances such as limited access to credit and descent housing, as well as crime and xenophobia as critical impediments to immigrants’ businesses in South Africa.…”

“…Despite the fact that the available evidence in the literature suggests that knowledge on immigrants’ entrepreneurship has been increasing overtime, many scholars [see [ [5] , [11] , [13] ]] have lamented that most of the studies undertaken are largely conducted in the context of the Global South such as America and European countries to the neglect of the Global South. In the African case, for example, the few studies that examined immigrant entrepreneurship are largely undertaken from the milieu of Southern African economies, notably South Africa [ [14] , [15] , [16] ]. However, differences in socio-economic development between South Africa and countries in West Africa, including enduring effect of apartheid, distinguish South Africa from other West African nations [ 5 ].…”

“…Two, the utility of this study is also justified by the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals on migration, particularly goal 10.7 which enjoins all member countries to improve migration data collection for the monitoring and adjustment of policies to protect migrant workers [ 1 , 23 ]. Three, the distinctive contribution of this study is its adoption of a concurrent mixed methods research design involving a relatively large sample of immigrant entrepreneurs who are citizens of West African countries unlike the use of qualitative designs and smaller samples of previous studies [see [ [4] , [14] , [15] , [24] , [25] ]].…”