The study investigates whether entrepreneurship among immigrant women in Sweden may be a way to achieve integration in working life and thereby increase their empowerment. Sixteen female entrepreneurs were interviewed. They started their businesses for a number of reasons: unemployment, lack of suitable jobs and career possibilities, discrimination and forced privatization, desire for personal development, independence and freedom, or work within one's own field of interest. It was concluded that entrepreneurship can be a tool for increasing empowerment among educated immigrant women.

The economic integration of immigrant women is an important subject for both Swedish society (Abbasian, 2003) and western society in general (Udeix-Udeix Alep, 2004). This is primarily explained by the high level of unemployment among immigrant women, especially among women from non-European countries. Even if they are employed, they run a higher risk of becoming unemployed later in life than other groups on the labor market. To a large extent, this can be explained by a deskilling process, which furthers the racial division of labor (Wren and Boyle, 2002). Deskilling can be described as a process in which skills and qualifications gained through earlier training and employment are either not utilized or not recognized after migration. This process results in unemployment, long-term social exclusion or employment in low status professions with low incomes or in dangerous and/or illegal sectors. The deskilling process may also explain much of the high-level of sick leave among immigrant women, which is much higher than among ethnic Swedish women (Akhavan et al., 2004).

Being empowered is important to the health and well-being of immigrant women. The common dimension in the definitions of empowerment is power: power to influence one's own life, power to make one's own choices and the power to act upon these choices. Empowerment has often been used as a concept to encourage and authorize workers to take the initiative to improve operations, reduce costs and improve product quality and customer service (Howard, 1995). Empowerment relates well to decision latitude. It is well-known from earlier research that the absence of decision latitude has a negative influence on health (Johnson, 1996). Empowerment and decision latitude might be of extremely high value and thus vital to discussions about the economic integration of immigrant women, since the process of empowerment aims to increase women's ability to act as well as give them power over their own lives (Williamson and Boehmer, 1997). To be excluded from so much in society, as these immigrant women are, does not promote empowerment and a sense of coherence (Antonovsky, 1984), and in turn impacts on the health of immigrant women.

Entrepreneurship Development Journal, Economic Integration, Entrepreneurial Activities, Translation Agency, Ethnic Resources, Entrepreneurial Efforts, Financial Resources, Socioeconomic Resources, Iimmigrant Women, Structural Motive.