Labour Market Challenges and Entrepreneurial Activities of

The succeeding section provides a description of Bangladesh immigrants’ employment outcomes in Toronto and outlines the data collection methods including a summary of the social characteristics of the Bangladeshi immigrant women who participated in the study. [...] Bangladeshi women’s engagement in home-based and non-home- based businesses is analyzed in the last section that compares the types of businesses operated at the two locations and investigates how family strategies encouraged women to operate businesses inside and outside the home. [...] In both instances, the women’s decisions to operate home-based businesses were shaped by the family’s financial needs and the desire to redress the husband’s and family’s loss of social status. [...] Nupur, who came to Toronto in 1985, provides a glimpse of the Bangladeshi concentration in the late 1980s when a few businesses served the needs of the growing Bangladeshi immigrant population. [...] There seems to be equality and companionship – in the decision to help the husband get their qualifications recognized and find a better job while they provide for the family or in partnering with the husband to established businesses to face the economic difficulties in the new country and achieve economic security.