Language-Skill Complementarity: Returns to Immigrant Language Acquisition / Eli Berman, Kevin Lang, Erez Siniver.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Berman, Eli.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Lang, Kevin.

Siniver, Erez.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w7737.

NBER working paper series no. w7737

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Language-Skill Complementarity

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2000.

Summary:

We examine the effect of language acquisition on the growth of immigrants' earnings. We gathered data on recent Soviet immigrants to Israel that include retrospective questions on earnings and language ability on entry into their current job. Language acquisition is found to interact positively with occupation level. Immigrant programmers and computer technicians have a return to tenure about three percentage points higher than that of natives; improved Hebrew language skills account for between 2/3 and 3/4 of that differential wage growth. In contrast, construction workers and gas station attendants have no convergence of wages to those of natives and language acquisition has no discernible effect on their wages. For these less skilled workers the estimated return' to Hebrew proficiency in the cross-section is entirely due to ability bias. This finding may invite a reinterpretation of other studies on the returns to language acquisition for low wage immigrants.

Notes:

Print version record

June 2000.