IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mir/mirbus/v5y2015i11p60-74.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Language Ability on Chinese Immigrants’ Earning in Hong Kong

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Ng Chi Man

    (Assistant Professor, School of Arts and Social Sciences, The Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.)

Abstract

After the handover of Hong Kong sovereignty to China in 1997, the language importance gap between English and Putonghua in Hong Kong has been narrowing, even English language is remain an international language and being adopted in legal documents, but foreign investors cannot avoid speaking Putonghua when doing business with Chinese enterprises, these language importance changes provide a new discourse to human capital theorists. In Hong Kong, natives are desire to be proficient in Putonghua and English while immigrants are eager to learn English and Cantonese, thus, investigating languages skills (Putonghua, English and Cantonese) returns yield a remarkable contribution to the existing immigrants assimilation literature. This paper employs language skills to understand a new assimilation process in Hong Kong and proves that Putonghua language skills are enhancing immigrants’ and natives’ earning, for industries which have better utilization of Putonghua language skills allow better return rate for immigrants, besides, it also shows the marginal effects of different languages on earnings are industry and occupation dependent.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Ng Chi Man, 2015. "The Effect of Language Ability on Chinese Immigrants’ Earning in Hong Kong," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 5(11), pages 60-74, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:mir:mirbus:v:5:y:2015:i:11:p:60-74
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://thejournalofbusiness.org/index.php/site/article/view/885/572
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul W. Miller & Barry R. Chiswick, 2002. "Immigrant earnings: Language skills, linguistic concentrations and the business cycle," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(1), pages 31-57.
    2. Thomas Bauer & Gil Epstein & Ira Gang, 2005. "Enclaves, language, and the location choice of migrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 18(4), pages 649-662, November.
    3. Chiswick, Barry R & Miller, Paul W, 1995. "The Endogeneity between Language and Earnings: International Analyses," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(2), pages 246-288, April.
    4. Chiswick, Barry R, 1991. "Speaking, Reading, and Earnings among Low-Skilled Immigrants," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(2), pages 149-170, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Isphording, Ingo E. & Otten, Sebastian, 2014. "Linguistic barriers in the destination language acquisition of immigrants," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 30-50.
    2. Michael Ng Chi Man, 2015. "The Effect of Language Ability on Chinese Immigrants’ Earning in Hong Kong," International Journal of Business and Social Research, LAR Center Press, vol. 5(11), pages 60-74, November.
    3. repec:zbw:rwirep:0274 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Barry R. Chiswick & Paul W. Miller, 2007. "Modeling Immigrants’ Language Skills," Research in Labor Economics, in: Immigration, pages 75-128, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    5. Alejandra Cattaneo & Rainer Winkelmann, 2005. "Earnings Differentials between German and French speakers in Switzerland," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 141(II), pages 191-212, June.
    6. Gao, Wenshu & Smyth, Russell, 2011. "Economic returns to speaking 'standard Mandarin' among migrants in China's urban labour market," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 342-352, April.
    7. Ilhom Abdulloev & Gil S. Epstein & Ira N. Gang, 2014. "Ethnic Goods and Immigrant Assimilation," Working Papers 2014-03, Bar-Ilan University, Department of Economics.
    8. Casale, Daniela & Posel, Dorrit, 2011. "English language proficiency and earnings in a developing country: The case of South Africa," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 385-393, August.
    9. Dustmann, Christian & Glitz, Albrecht, 2011. "Migration and Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 327-439, Elsevier.
    10. Zhiling Wang & Thomas de Graaff & Peter Nijkamp, 2018. "Barriers of Culture, Networks, and Language in International Migration: A Review," REGION, European Regional Science Association, vol. 5, pages 73-89.
    11. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2014. "International Migration and the Economics of Language," IZA Discussion Papers 7880, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Barry R. Chiswick, 2000. "A Model of Immigrant Language Acquisition: Application to Male Immigrants in Canada," University of Chicago - George G. Stigler Center for Study of Economy and State 149, Chicago - Center for Study of Economy and State.
    13. Barry Chiswick & Paul Miller, 2001. "A model of destination-language acquisition: Application to male immigrants in Canada," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(3), pages 391-409, August.
    14. Alexander M. Danzer & Firat Yaman, 2010. "Ethnic Concentration and Language Fluency of Immigrants in Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 277, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    15. Danzer, Alexander M. & Yaman, Firat, 2016. "Ethnic concentration and language fluency of immigrants: Evidence from the guest-worker placement in Germany," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 151-165.
    16. Valentine Fays & Benoît Mahy & François Rycx, 2023. "Wage differences according to workers' origin: The role of working more upstream in GVCs," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 37(2), pages 319-342, June.
    17. Chiswick, Barry R & Miller, Paul M, 1996. "Ethnic Networks and Language Proficiency among Immigrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 19-35, February.
    18. Antonio Di Paolo & Josep Lluís Raymond, 2012. "Language Knowledge and Earnings in Catalonia," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 89-118, May.
    19. Victor Ginsburgh & Shlomo Weber, 2020. "The Economics of Language," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(2), pages 348-404, June.
    20. Constant, Amelie F. & Gataullina, Liliya & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2009. "Ethnosizing immigrants," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 274-287, March.
    21. Alícia Adserà & Mariola Pytliková, 2015. "The Role of Language in Shaping International Migration," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(586), pages 49-81, August.

    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:mir:mirbus:v:5:y:2015:i:11:p:60-74. 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: M Kabir (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csmirus.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.