IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aerins/v5y2023i4p477-93.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact of Host Language Proficiency on Migrants' Employment Outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Lukas Schmid

Abstract

This paper estimates the economic gains from proficiency in the host country's language on migrants' employment outcomes by exploiting the exogenous placement of refugees to Swiss cantons and a sharp language border dividing German- and French-speaking regions. Using administrative data on African refugees who applied for Swiss asylum between 2008 and 2017, I compare French-speaking refugees assigned to the French-speaking region to French-speaking refugees assigned to the German-speaking region and adjust for common regional differences with outcomes from English-speaking African refugees. The results suggest that language proficiency more than doubles the employment level in the first five years after arrival.

Suggested Citation

  • Lukas Schmid, 2023. "The Impact of Host Language Proficiency on Migrants' Employment Outcomes," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 477-493, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aerins:v:5:y:2023:i:4:p:477-93
    DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20220386
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20220386
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E183861V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20220386.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20220386.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/aeri.20220386?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Beatrix Eugster & Rafael Lalive & Andreas Steinhauer & Josef Zweimüller, 2017. "Culture, Work Attitudes, and Job Search: Evidence from the Swiss Language Border," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(5), pages 1056-1100.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Peter Toth & Matej Vitalos, 2024. "Complementarities of Occupations and Language Skills of Immigrants in Europe," Working and Discussion Papers WP 10/2024, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.
    2. Tumen, Semih & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Wahba, Jackline, 2025. "The Power of Language: Educational and Mental Health Impacts of Language Training for Refugee Children," IZA Discussion Papers 17593, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Daniel Auer & Michaela Slotwinski & Achim Ahrens & Dominik Hangartner & Selina Kurer & Stefanie Kurt & Alois Stutzer, 2024. "Social Assistance and Refugee Crime," CESifo Working Paper Series 11051, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yoichi Arai & Yu‐Chin Hsu & Toru Kitagawa & Ismael Mourifié & Yuanyuan Wan, 2022. "Testing identifying assumptions in fuzzy regression discontinuity designs," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(1), pages 1-28, January.
    2. Adams-Prassl, Abi & Boneva, Teodora & Golin, Marta & Rauh, Christopher, 2023. "Perceived returns to job search," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    3. Steinhauer, Andreas, 2018. "Working Moms, Childlessness, and Female Identity," CEPR Discussion Papers 12929, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Daniel Auer & Johannes S. Kunz, 2021. "Communication Barriers and Infant Health: Intergenerational Effects of Randomly Allocating Refugees Across Language Regions," SoDa Laboratories Working Paper Series 2021-07, Monash University, SoDa Laboratories.
    5. Chartouni Carole & Holzmann Robert & Paez Gustavo N., 2020. "Not everyone is engaged: an innovative approach to measure engagement levels on the labor market," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 10(1), pages 1-25, March.
    6. Albanese, Andrea & Picchio, Matteo & Ghirelli, Corinna, 2020. "Timed to Say Goodbye: Does Unemployment Benefit Eligibility Affect Worker Layoffs?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    7. David Dorn & Josef Zweimüller, 2021. "Migration and Labor Market Integration in Europe," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(2), pages 49-76, Spring.
    8. Cai, Shu & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2024. "Social identity and labor market outcomes of internal migrant workers," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    9. Furtado, Delia & Papps, Kerry L. & Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos, 2022. "Who Goes on Disability when Times are Tough? The Role of Work Norms among Immigrants," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    10. Deopa, Neha & Fortunato, Piergiuseppe, 2021. "Coronagraben in Switzerland: Culture and social distancing in times of COVID-19," GLO Discussion Paper Series 857, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    11. Aepli, Manuel & Kuhn, Andreas & Schweri, Jürg, 2021. "Culture, norms, and the provision of training by employers: Evidence from the Swiss language border," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    12. Francesco Campo & Luca Nunziata & Lorenzo Rocco, 2024. "Business is tense: new evidence on how language affects economic activity," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 121-149, March.
    13. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1a68qg411o9bg9jp7fhgh60n5p is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Cottier, Lionel, 2018. "Culture, financial constraints, and retirement decision," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 128-145.
    15. Barbara Boelmann & Anna Christina Raute & Uta Schönberg, 2021. "Wind of Change? Cultural Determinants of Maternal Labor Supply," CESifo Working Paper Series 9094, CESifo.
    16. Daniele Mantegazzi & Philip McCann & Viktor Venhorst, 2020. "The impact of language borders on the spatial decay of agglomeration and competition spillovers," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 558-577, June.
    17. Neha Deopa & Piergiuseppe Fortunato, 2022. "Language and the cultural markers of COVID-19," Post-Print hal-03665755, HAL.
    18. Filippini, Massimo & Wekhof, Tobias, 2021. "The effect of culture on energy efficient vehicle ownership," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    19. Katharina Erhardt & Simon Haenni, 2018. "Born to be an entrepreneur? How cultural origin affects entrepreneurship," ECON - Working Papers 309, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    20. Markus Frölich & Martin Huber, 2019. "Including Covariates in the Regression Discontinuity Design," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(4), pages 736-748, October.
    21. Kuhn, Andreas & Schweri, Jürg & Wolter, Stefan C., 2022. "Local norms describing the role of the state and the private provision of training," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J82 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Labor Force Composition
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aerins:v:5:y:2023:i:4:p:477-93. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.