Casey, Teresa, and Christian Dustmann. 2008. “Intergenerational Transmission of Language Capital and Economic Outcomes.” Journal of Human Resources 43(3): 660–687.
This paper investigates the intergenerational transmission of language capital among immigrants, and the effect of language deficiencies on the economic performance of second-generation immigrants. Using a long panel that oversamples immigrants, we can follow their children after they have left the parental home. Our results show a sizeable significant association between parents’ and children’s fluency, conditional on parental and family characteristics. We find that language deficiencies of the second generation are associated with poorer labor market outcomes for females only. Finally, we find a strong relationship between parental fluency and female labor market outcomes, which works through the child’s language proficiency.
Teresa Casey is a research student and Christian Dustmann is a professor in the department of economics at the University College London, CReAM (Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration) and Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics. The authors would like to thank two anonymous referees for comments. The Economic and Social Research Council (grant RES-000-23-0332) funded this research. The data on which this analysis is based are available from the DIW in Berlin. Users must register and sign an agreement with the data provider. The authors will help other researchers in pursuing these data.