Abstract

Entrepreneurship can be a source of collective and individual social mobility for immigrants. In this context, the article aims to describe the socio-demographic and economic aspects of Chilean immigrant entrepreneurs in the province of Almeria (Spain), describing the particularities of their entrepreneurship. Likewise, we explored the motivations that they had when integrating the working market on their own, and the facilities and obstacles that they had to overcome to start their businesses. We adopted a methodological complementarity approach with questionnaires and in-depth interviews, where ten women and five men who emigrated from Chile to Spain participated. The results show that the incidence of self-employment in Chile is a determinant of starting a business in Spain. Entrepreneurship is mainly carried out in selling services to people and companies, women being more inclined to become entrepreneurs. The motivations to do so are diverse however, they all involve searching for strategies of economic adaptation to their new environment.