Immigrants' Language Skills and Visa Category1

This article is concerned with the determinants of English language proficiency among immigrants in a longitudinal survey for Australia. It focuses on both visa category and variables derived from an economic model of the determinants of destination‐language proficiency among immigrants. Skills‐tested and economic immigrants have the greatest proficiency shortly after immigration, followed by family‐based visa recipients, with refugees having the lowest proficiency. Other variables the same, these differences disappear by 3.5 years after immigration for speaking skills; and although they diminish, they persist longer for reading and writing skills. The variables generated from the model of destination‐language proficiency (such as schooling and age at migration) are, in part, predictions of visa category, but they are more important statistically for explaining proficiency.     

Are there gender and country of origin differences in immigrant labor market outcomes across European destinations?

The 1994–2000 waves of the European Community Household Panel are used to study the earnings of immigrants as compared to native workers in 15 European countries. At the time of arrival, there is a significant negative partial effect of foreign birth on individual earnings compared to the native born in the destination of around 40%. These differences vary across origins and destinations and by gender. Immigrant earnings catch-up to those of the native born after around 18 years in the destination. Schooling matters more for earnings for women, whereas, language skills are relatively more important for men.

Jacob Mincer,Experience and the Distribution of Earnings

This paper reviews Jacob Mincer's contributions to the analyses of earnings and the distribution of earnings through his pioneering focus on labor market experience or on-the-job training. It begins with a brief discussion of the theoretical literature on the distribution of earnings in the pre-Mincer period, and then discusses his analysis of human capital and earnings developed in his 1957 doctoral dissertation and 1958 Journal of Political Economy (JPE) article. Further analyses of on-the-job training, and in particular estimates of the rate of return from on-the-job training, are presented in his 1962 JPE paper. The synergy between Mincer and Becker during the 1960s is discussed, as is the development of the schooling-earnings function by Gary S. Becker and Barry R. Chiswick (1966). Jacob Mincer extended this relationship by incorporating experience to form the human capital earnings function in his Schooling, Experience and Earnings (1974). Subsequent modifications, extensions, tests of robustness and the wide applicability of the human capital earnings function are presented.     

Immigrants' Language Skills: The Australian Experience in a Longitudinal Survey

This article is concerned with the determinants of English language proficiency (speaking, reading and writing) among immigrants. It presents a model of immigrant destination language proficiency based on economic incentives, exposure to the destination language, and efficiency in second language acquisition. A unique data set, the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia, is used to test the model. This survey had three waves, at about six months, eighteen months and three‐and‐a‐half years after immigration. The analyses are performed by wave, type of language skill and gender using probit analysis. Bivariate probit analysis is used across waves. The hypotheses are supported by the data. The bivariate probit analysis indicates a positive correlation in the unexplained component that declines with time between waves, suggesting a “regression to the mean” in the unobserved components of English language proficiency.     

Hebrew language usage: determinants and effects on earnings among immigrants in Israel

This paper uses the 1983 Census of Israel to analyze Hebrew speaking skills and the effects of Hebrew fluency on the earnings of adult male immigrants. Hebrew fluency increases with a longer duration in Israel, the presence of children in the household, marrying after immigration, living in an area in which a smaller proportion speak one‘s mother tongue, a younger age at migration, a higher level of schooling and varies by country of birth. Earnings increase monotonically with the use of Hebrew. Speaking English as a second language is associated with higher earnings, even when country of origin is held constant. Received: 9 June 1997/Accepted: 6 November 1997     

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.

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     

Divorce among European and Mexican Immigrants in the U.S

Review of Economics of the Household - This paper analyzes the status of being currently divorced among European and Mexican immigrants in the U.S., among themselves and in comparison to the native...     

A Longitudinal Analysis of Immigrant Occupational Mobility: A Test of the Immigrant Assimilation Hypothesis1

This article develops a model of the occupational mobility of immigrants and tests the hypotheses using data on males from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia, Panel I. The theoretical model generates hypotheses regarding a U‐shaped pattern of occupational mobility from the “last job” in the origin, to the “first job” in the destination, to subsequent jobs in the destination, and regarding the depth of the “U.” The survey includes data on pre‐immigration occupation, the “first” occupation in Australia (at six months) and the occupation after about three‐and‐a‐half years in Australia. The hypotheses are supported by the empirical analysis.