Does the language of instruction in primary school affect later labour market outcomes? Evidence from South Africa

This paper uses a change in the language of instruction in South African schools in 1955 to examine the effect of mother-tongue instead of English or Afrikaans instruction on long-term educational and economic outcomes. Using the 1980 South African census, a difference-in-difference framework allows me to estimate the effect of increasing mother-tongue instruction for black students from four to six years. I find positive effects on wages which I interpret as evidence of increases in human capital; these effects might have been larger in the absence of labour market discrimination against blacks under apartheid. I find positive effects on the ability to read and write, on educational attainment, and on the ability to speak English in predominantly English areas. I examine heterogeneous effects by region. This paper informs knowledge about the long-term effects of one aspect of a major apartheid education policy, the Bantu Education Act.