Mental Health Challenges Amongst Immigrant Entrepreneurs: A Silent Struggle

Abstract

Immigrant entrepreneurs face several stressors with the potential to negatively impact their mental health and business performance. Due to their critical role in the economy, immigrant entrepreneurs’ mental health has to be promoted. Immigrant entrepreneurs create jobs, foster innovation and economic growth by contributing to gross domestic product (GDP). Examining mental health challenges experienced by immigrant entrepreneurs provides insights regarding sources of stressors. This helps in identifying coping strategies and solutions that can be proffered to address mental health challenges among immigrant entrepreneurs. The study follows a literature review approach involving collecting relevant data from existing studies. The review also shows that mental health challenges amongst immigrants are caused by various stressors, which include pre-migration trauma, social isolation, xenophobia, acculturation challenges, lack of resources, legal barriers, and economic challenges. To cope with these challenges, immigrant entrepreneurs adopt strategies that can be classified as individual, economic, cultural, and social strategies. These insights provide the basis for the expansion of mental health services in South Africa, both at the policy and practitioner levels, to cater for immigrant entrepreneurs' mental health needs. The research provides original perspectives on mental health challenges faced by immigrant entrepreneurs, highlighting key stressors and coping strategies that they adopt. This provides insights that can be leveraged to improve the plight of immigrant entrepreneurs as key actors in the host country’s economy.