Family matters: the role of the family in immigrants' destination language acquisition

Studies of immigrants' destination language acquisition to date have focused on the individual. In contrast, this paper is concerned with the relationships among family members in the determinants of destination language proficiency among immigrants. A model of immigrant language proficiency is augmented to include dynamics among family members. It is tested using data on a sample of recent immigrants. Children are shown to have a negative effect on their mother's language proficiency, but no effect on their father's. There is a substantial positive correlation between the language skills of spouses. This is due to the correlation between spouses in both the measured and the unmeasured determinants of destination language skills, even when country of origin fixed effects are held constant.

Occupational language requirements and the value of English in the US labor market

This paper is concerned with the English-language requirements of occupations in the USA, as measured by the O*NET database. These scores are linked to employed native and foreign-born men in the 2000 Census. Earnings increase with the respondent’s proficiency in English, with the English proficiency required for the occupation, and when those with high levels of proficiency work in jobs requiring English-language skills (interaction effect). There is a strong economic incentive for the matching of worker’s English skills and the occupation’s requirements, and this matching tends to occur in the labor market.     

Enclaves, language, and the location choice of migrants

Empirical studies in the migration literature have shown that enclaves (networks) negatively affect the language proficiency of migrants. Most of these studies do not address the choice of location as a function of language skills. Using data on Mexican migration to the US, we show that migrants choose smaller networks as their English language proficiency improves.

How do immigrants spend their time? The process of assimilation

Sharp differences in time use by nativity emerge when activities are distinguished by incidence and intensity in recent US data. A model with daily fixed costs for assimilating activities predicts that immigrants are less likely than natives to undertake such activities on a given day; but those who do will spend relatively more time on them. Activities such as purchasing, education, and market work conform to the model. Other results suggest that fixed costs for assimilating activities are higher for immigrants with poor English proficiency or who originate in less developed countries. An analysis of comparable Australian data yields similar results.     

Language usage and fertility in the Mexican-origin population of the United States

This article examines the effects of English proficiency and female education on cumulative and recent fertility within the Mexican-origin population in the U.S. To ascertain whether the cultural or the human capital aspects of linguistic variables have the greater salience for fertility behavior, fertility patterns of bilingual women are compared with those of monolingual women speaking English or Spanish. Using the 1980 U.S. Census 5 percent Public Use Microdata Sample for ever-married Mexican-origin women aged 15-44, we find that for almost all age cohorts, the effects of English proficiency are negative and increase with rising education. The strength of the interaction is greater in younger age groups. Greater English proficiency is also associated with a more negative impact of education for native- than foreign-born women. Overall, the influence of "opportunity cost," as opposed to cultural factors, is more important in shaping the fertility behavior of these women.     

The English language fluency and occupational success of ethnic minority immigrant men living in English metropolitan areas

This paper examines two crucial aspects of the assimilation experience of ethnic minority immigrants in the United Kingdom. It explores the determinants of their English language (speaking) fluency and the key role such skills play in their occupational success. Our sample is derived from the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities undertaken in 1994. Uniquely this data contains an interviewer-assessed measure of English language fluency. Importantly, we also attempt to control for possible endogeneity bias in the estimates of the effect of language fluency on occupational success. We find that fluency is associated with significantly higher mean hourly occupational wages. Received: 26 November 1999/Accepted: 03 August 2000     

Born in another country: Women's experience of labour and birth in Queensland,Australia

BackgroundWomen born outside Australia make up more than a fifth of the Queensland birthing population and like migrants in other parts of the world face the challenges of cultural dislocation and possible language barriers. Recognising that labour and birth are major life events the aim was to investigate the experiences of these women in comparison to native-born English speaking women.MethodsSecondary analysis of data from a population based survey of women who had recently birthed in Queensland. Self-reported clinical outcomes and quality of interpersonal care of 481 women born outside Australia who spoke a language other than English at home were compared with those of 5569 Australian born women speaking only English.ResultsAfter adjustment for demographic factors and type of birthing facility, women born in another country were less likely to be induced, but more likely to have constant electronic fetal monitoring (EFM), to give birth lying on their back or side, and to have an episiotomy. Most women felt that they were treated as an individual and with kindness and respect. However, women born outside Australia were less likely to report being looked after ‘very well’ during labour and birth and to be more critical of some aspects of care.ConclusionIn comparing the labour and birth experiences of women born outside the country who spoke another language with native-born English speaking women, the present study presents a largely positive picture. However, there were some marked differences in both clinical and interpersonal aspects of care.     

Measuring Hope in the Philippines: Validating the Short Version of the Locus-of-Hope Scale in Filipino

A short version of the locus-of-hope Scale was developed and translated into the Filipino language for the purpose of assessing hope in Filipinos who have lower levels of education and who may not have adequate levels of proficiency in English. The 20-item scale had four locus-of-hope subscales (internal, external-family, external-peers, and external-spiritual) each with four items (another four were filler items); all items described thoughts associated with some capacity and strategy to attain important goals in life. A sample (N = 362) of adults from communities in Metro Manila were asked to answer the scale, as well as measures of optimism, self-esteem, and life satisfaction. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated an adequate fit between the hypothesized four-factor structure and the data, but the internal locus-of-hope scale was found to have low internal consistency. Regression analysis showed positive associations between the internal and external-family locus-of-hope subscales and the three measures of wellbeing. But external-peers locus-of-hope was negatively associated with optimism and self-esteem, and external-spiritual locus-of-hope was positively related with optimism.     

Race,language, and social policy: Comparing the black and Hispanic experience in the U.S.

Recent studies project that most new U.S. workers by the year 2000 will be minorities, and warn that educational deficiencies among blacks and Hispanics may lead to a two-tiered society. Since the 1960s the U.S. government, prodded by a coalition of black and Hispanic rights organizations, has adopted a minority-discrimination model of equal opportunity that requires affirmative-action benefits for both protected groups to compensate for past discrimination. For Hispanics these programs have required separate, Spanish-language instruction in school.Since 1969, the availability of new survey data on ethnicity, family income, and Englishlanguage proficiency from the Census Bureau and the National Assessment for Educational Progress has permitted comparisons of social mobility by racial and ethnic groups. These studies show greater economic success among nonEnglish-speaking groups from Europe and Asia than among white-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant (WASP) groups, and they show similar upward mobility among Hispanics when proficiency in English is taken into account.These optimistic trends are tempered by the demands of the new global economy for high levels of literacy and numeracy in the knowledge-based industries of the future. In this job competition Asian-Americans, despite their language difficulties, have been most successful and blacks least successful. The political and ideological needs of black and Hispanic leaders have tied government policies to the minority-discrimination model and linked Hispanic remedies to Spanish-language programs, but the empirical data associate economic success with the acculturation model and English-language proficiency.     

A model of destination-language acquisition: Application to male immigrants in Canada

We develop a model using human capital theory and an immigrant adjustment process to generate hypotheses on the acquisition of destination-language skills among immigrants. The model is tested for adult male immigrants in the 1991 Census of Canada. Use of English or French is greater, the younger the age at migration, the longer the duration of residence, the higher the educational attainment, the farther the country of origin from Canada, and the linguistically closer the mother tongue to English or French, and among those who are not refugees, those from a former British, French, or American colony, and those who live in an area where fewer people speak the respondent’s mother tongue. The explanatory variables based on birthplace have behavioral interpretations and possess almost as much explanatory power as the birthplace dummy variables     

Immigration to the U.S.: the unfinished story

Annual totals of new immigrants and refugees in the US may now be up to the record highs of over a million immigrants counted in 6 years between 1905 and 1914. Since 1979, legal immigrants have averaged 566,000 a year (570,009 in 1985), newly arrived refugees and asylees approved have averaged 135,000, and the "settled" illegal immigrant population is growing by up to 1/2 million a year, according to some estimates. 1/2 of illegal immigrants are persons who entered the US legally but then overstayed the terms of temporary visas. Immigration and Naturalization Service apprehensions of illegal aliens, projected at a record 1.8 million for fiscal year 1986, indicate a sharp increase in illegal border crossers, driven by Mexico's and Central America's mounting population and economic pressures and lured by the prospect of jobs with employers who through a loophole in US immigration law can hire illegal aliens without penalty. The Census Bureau estimates that net immigration now accounts for 28% of US population growth and will account for all growth by the 2030's if fertility stays at the current low 1.8 births per woman. Public opinion strongly favors crubs on illegal immigration and legalization of illegal aliens long resident in the US, and in 1986 Congress enacted legislation to reduce illegal immigration to the US. Asians and Latin Americans now make up over 80% of legal immigrants and Latin Americans comprised 77% of illegal immigrants counted in the 1980 census. Asians far outstrip Latin American immigrants in education, occupational status, and income and might be expected to assimilate in the same manner as earlier immigrant group did. Hispanic immigrants so far appear to favor cultural pluralism, maintaining their own culture and the Spanish language. Research in California indicates that recent Hispanic immigrants (legal and illegal) have helped preserve low-wage industries and agriculture. Illegal immigrants appear to draw more on public health and education services than they pay back in taxes. With or without immigration reform, population and economic pressures in Mexico and the Caribbean Basin ensure that the numbers of people seeking to enter the US are only likely to increase.     

Immigrant earnings: Language skills, linguistic concentrations and the business cycle

This study of the determinants of earnings among adult foreign-born men using the 1990 Census of Population focuses on the effects of the respondent's own English language skills, the effects of living in a linguistic concentration area, and the effects of the stage of the business cycle at entry into the U.S. labor market. The analysis demonstrates the importance of English language fluency among the foreign born from non-English speaking countries. There is also strong evidence for the complementarity between language skills and other forms of human capital. Furthermore, there is strong evidence using selectivity correction techniques for the endogeneity between language and earnings. Received: 30 November 1999/Accepted: 6 February 2001     

Ethnic networks and language proficiency among immigrants

Recent research on the linguistic adjustment of minority-language speaking immigrants in several destinations has found that acquisition of destination language skills is inhibited by living in an area where many others speak the same minority language. This paper uses a unique data set for Australia (1988) that includes a variety of ethnic network variables to analyze the role of the language concentration measure. These ethnic variables, in particular, ethnic press, relatives in Australia, and spouse's origin language, are highly statistically significant. Their inclusion in the equation eliminates the effect of the minority-language concentration variable. The model for analyzing the determinants of English reading and English writing skills in Australia is also shown to be very similar to the model for speaking fluency, including the effect of the ethnic network variables. Received July 18, 1994 / Accepted November 21, 1994     

Undocumented workers in the labor market: an analysis of the earnings of legal and illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States

This paper studies the differences in earnings between Mexican legal and illegal immigrants in the United States. The analysis includes a cross-sectional examination of the wage differences between legal and undocumented workers as well as a longitudinal analysis examining the impact of legalization on the earnings of previously-undocumented workers. It is shown that the average hourly wage rate of male Mexican legal immigrants in the United States was 41.8% higher than that of undocumented workers while female legal immigrants earned 40.8% more. Though illegal immigrants have lower education and English proficiency, and a shorter period of residence in the United States, than legal immigrants, it is shown that differences in the observed characteristics of legal and illegal immigrants explain only 48% of the log-wage gap between male legal and illegal workers and 43% of the gap for women. An analysis of undocumented immigrants legalized after the 1986 U.S. immigration policy reform shows significant wage growth in the four years following legalization. These gains are due mostly to the change in legal status itself, not to changes in the characteristics of immigrants over time. Received: 7 July 1997/Accepted: 16 March 1998     

Economic Assimilation and Skill Acquisition: Evidence From the Occupational Sorting of Childhood Immigrants

We study the economic assimilation of childhood immigrants to the United States. The linguistic distance between English and the predominant language in one’s country of birth interacted with age at arrival is shown to be closely connected to occupational sorting in adulthood. By applying big-data techniques to occupations’ detailed skill requirements, we provide evidence that childhood immigrants from English-distant countries who arrived after the primary school years reveal comparative advantages in tasks distinct from those for which (close to) Anglophone immigrants are better suited. Meanwhile, those who arrive at younger ages specialize in a bundle of skills very similar to that supplied by observationally equivalent workers. These patterns emerge even after we net out the effects of formal education. Such findings are compatible with the existence of different degrees of complementarity between relative English-learning potential at arrival and the acquisition of multiple capabilities demanded in the U.S. labor market (math/logic, socioemotional, physical, and communication skills). Consistent with the investment-complementarity argument, we show that linguistic distance and age at arrival also play a significant role on the choice of college major within this population.     

Immigrants’ Sense of Belonging to the Host Country: The Role of Life Satisfaction,Language Proficiency,and Religious Motives

This paper focuses on a significant concept in migration studies: immigrants’ sense of belonging to the host society. Drawing upon the literature of immigration and subjective well-being, we proposed a model in which life satisfaction is a major predictor of immigrants’ sense of belonging, and is explained by background variables including religious affiliation, religious motivation, native language proficiency and ethnic segregation. The study was based on a survey of two groups of highly skilled migrants in Israel; immigrants from France and the Former Soviet Union who moved to Israel in the last two decades. The findings suggest that, as expected, life satisfaction had a significant influence on immigrants’ sense of belonging and served as a mediator variable in the model. Whereas ethnic segregation was not found to be a significant parameter in the model, religious motivation and Hebrew language proficiency were found to be prominent. In light of the literature, we also discuss the importance of religious motivations to immigrants’ subjective well-being, identity, and sense of belonging.

     

Region of Birth and Disability Among Recent U.S. Immigrants: Evidence from the 2000 Census

This study aimed to test the “healthy immigrant” hypothesis and assess health heterogeneity among newly arrived working-age immigrants (18–64 years) from various regions of origin. Using the 5% sample of the 2000 U.S. Census (PUMS), we found that, compared with their native-born counterparts, immigrants from all regions of the world were less likely to report mental disability and physical disability. Immigrants from selected regions of origin were, however, more likely to report work disability. Significant heterogeneity in disabilities exists among immigrants: Those from Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia reported the highest risk of mental and physical disability, and those from East Asia reported the lowest risk of physical disability. Furthermore, Mexican immigrants reported the lowest risk of mental disability, and Canadian immigrants reported the lowest risk of work disability. Socioeconomic status and English proficiency partially explained these differences. The health advantage of immigrants decreased with longer U.S. residence.     

A consideration of the effect of immigration reform on the number of undocumented residents in the United States

The volume of immigration to the United States exceeds the amount of immigration to any other nation, but quantification must rely on measurement of population stocks. Comparison of foreign-born population figures for two or more survey dates reveal net immigration but fail to partition the foreign-born population by legal status. This analysis presents national survey data on the foreign-born population in November 1989 for comparison with an independently derived estimate of the legally resident foreign-born population at the same date. The demonstration of a measurable undocumented population residing in the United States is very helpful in evaluating the success of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Despite the legalization of 1.7 million aliens who provided evidence of undocumented residence since before 1982, and economic sanctions against employers found to hire undocumented workers, an undocumented population persists in the United States that appears to be largely composed of aliens from Latin American countries. Precise measurement of the size of this population is complicated by the uncertainties surrounding the population of approximately one million Special Agricultural Workers admitted under IRCA. The work and residence history of these aliens as well as their future labor sector experiences and residence patterns are not known. Despite efforts to stop undocumented immigration to the United States, undocumented migration, especially across the southern border, appears to have occurred at consistent levels throughout the past fifteen years.This paper reports the general results of research undertaken by Census Bureau staff. The views expressed are attributable to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Census Bureau.     

Collectivism, Cultural Identity and Employee Mental Health: A Study of New Zealand Māori

Māori are a collectivistic people living within a largely individualistic country. The present study tested whether Māori who practice higher levels of workplace collectivism feel greater alignment with their overall cultural beliefs, and report better mental health results because of their lower levels of anxiety and depression. Three hundred and thirty-six Māori employees were surveyed, and a regression analysis showed significant direct effects, with collectivism accounting for a sizable 20 % of the variance in both anxiety and depression. Two moderators relating to cultural knowledge and cultural language were also tested. Significant two-way interactions were found: high collectivism and high cultural knowledge led to low depression, and high cultural knowledge and high cultural language skills led to low depression and anxiety. A three-way interaction was found between anxiety, collectivism and cultural knowledge and/or language: low anxiety was reported by respondents with high collectivism and either high cultural knowledge or cultural language. Overall, the study highlights the importance of collectivism and cultural identity for Māori employees’ mental health.     

A century of U.S. censuses and the language characteristics of immigrants

Since 1890, every U.S. census but one has asked about the language characteristics of the U.S. population. This almost uninterrupted data series, however, has been shaped by contemporaneous presumptions about the ties between language and ethnicity, the likelihood of proficiency in English among various subgroups, and practical constraints. I describe shifts across censuses in the phrasing of questions about language, the coding of responses, and the subpopulations for which the questions were asked and the results were published. I then describe the data generated by these items and discuss their interpretation. I conclude with a summary of the major insights and limitations of a century's worth of data.