IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ubc/clssrn/clsrn_admin-2009-50.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Language at Work: The Impact of Linguistic Enclaves on Immigrant Economic Integration

Author

Listed:
  • Boyd, Monica

Abstract

This paper studies the role played by linguistic enclaves on the economic integration of immigrants to Canada. Linguistic enclaves are defined as groups of people who are similar with respect to languages used on their jobs. A five category classification of major types of linguistic enclaves is produced, using responses to two questions on the Canadian 2006 census of population: language most often used on the job and language(s) regularly used at work. Two core questions are asked: 1) What factors influence the likelihood of employment in linguistic enclaves; and 2) What are the impacts of working in linguistic enclaves on earnings? These questions are answered by examining the economic integration of immigrant allophone women and men age 26-64 who were employed in 2005 or 2006 and who were enumerated in the 2006 Canadian census of population. The investigation shows that levels of language proficiency are important factors determining the type of language enclave where individuals are employed. Further language at work mediates much of the observed impacts of language proficiency on earnings. Wage determination models also confirm that employment in linguistic enclaves conditions weekly earnings; allophone immigrants who use non-official languages at work have lower wages than those who use only English at work.

Suggested Citation

  • Boyd, Monica, 2009. "Language at Work: The Impact of Linguistic Enclaves on Immigrant Economic Integration," CLSSRN working papers clsrn_admin-2009-50, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 25 Sep 2009.
  • Handle: RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2009-50
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.clsrn.econ.ubc.ca/workingpapers/CLSRN%20Working%20Paper%20no.%2041%20-%20Boyd.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2003. "The complementarity of language and other human capital: immigrant earnings in Canada," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 469-480, October.
    2. 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.
    3. Deborah A. Cobb‐Clark & Marie D. Connolly, 2001. "A Family Affair: The Labor Market Experience of Immigrant Spouses," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 82(4), pages 796-811, December.
    4. Kennedy, Peter E, 1981. "Estimation with Correctly Interpreted Dummy Variables in Semilogarithmic Equations [The Interpretation of Dummy Variables in Semilogarithmic Equations]," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 801-801, September.
    5. 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.
    6. Walter S. McManus, 1990. "Labor Market Effects of Language Enclaves: Hispanic Men in the United States," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(2), pages 228-252.
    7. Hou, Feng & Picot, Garnett, 2003. "The Rise in Low-income Rates Among Immigrants in Canada," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2003198e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    8. Marie T. Mora & Alberto Dávila, 2005. "Ethnic group size, linguistic isolation, and immigrant entrepreneurship in the USA," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(5), pages 389-404, September.
    9. Halvorsen, Robert & Palmquist, Raymond, 1980. "The Interpretation of Dummy Variables in Semilogarithmic Equations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 474-475, June.
    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. Alícia Adserà & Ana Ferrer, 2021. "Linguistic Proximity and the Labour Market Performance of Immigrant Men in Canada," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 35(1), pages 1-23, March.

    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. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2014. "International Migration and the Economics of Language," IZA Discussion Papers 7880, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Ying Zhen, 2016. "English Proficiency and Earnings of Foreign-Born Immigrants in the USA from 1980 to 2000: The Effect of Minority-Language Enclaves," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(4), pages 329-349, October.
    3. Wesley Nimon & John Beghin, 1999. "Are Eco-Labels Valuable? Evidence From the Apparel Industry," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 81(4), pages 801-811.
    4. Mao, Luke Lunhua & Zhang, James J. & Connaughton, Daniel P., 2015. "Sports gambling as consumption: Evidence from demand for sports lottery," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 436-447.
    5. Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M. & Wendlan, Nicolai, 2008. "Spatial Determinants of CBD Emergence: A Micro-level Case Study on Berlin∗," MPRA Paper 11572, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Javier Torres, 2013. "Repeat after me, my name is Javier: immigrants english prociency improvement four years after arrival," Working Papers 13-03, Centro de Investigación, Universidad del Pacífico.
    7. Barry R. Chiswick & Paul W. Miller, 2007. "Modeling Immigrants’ Language Skills," Research in Labor Economics, in: Immigration, pages 75-128, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Chiswick, Barry R., 2008. "The Economics of Language: An Introduction and Overview," IZA Discussion Papers 3568, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Fang, Tony & Samnani, Al-Karim & Novicevic, Milorad M. & Bing, Mark N., 2013. "Liability-of-foreignness effects on job success of immigrant job seekers," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 98-109.
    12. Steven G. Craig & Polly T. Hardee, 2002. "The Internet, Bank Structure and Small Business Lending," Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business and Management, vol. 7(1), pages 77-98, Spring.
    13. Seebens, Holger, 2008. "One size fits all? Female Headed Households, Income Risk, and Access to Resources," 2008 International Congress, August 26-29, 2008, Ghent, Belgium 43609, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    14. Federico Ciliberto & Jonathan W. Williams, 2010. "Limited Access to Airport Facilities and Market Power in the Airline Industry," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(3), pages 467-495.
    15. Baumann, Julian & Kritikos, Alexander S., 2016. "The link between R&D, innovation and productivity: Are micro firms different?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(6), pages 1263-1274.
    16. Urbina, Jilber, 2017. "Eficiencia técnica en la producción de café en Nicaragua: Un análisis de fronteras estocásticas [Technical efficiency in coffee production: a stochastic frontier analysis for Nicaragua]," MPRA Paper 82690, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Sep 2017.
    17. Stevans, Lonnie, 2007. "The Effect of Right-to-Work Laws on Business and Economic Conditions: A Multivariate Approach," MPRA Paper 5638, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Dor, Avi & Farley, Dean E., 1996. "Payment source and the cost of hospital care: Evidence from a multiproduct cost function with multiple payers," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-21, February.
    19. John Humphreys, 2015. "Education Premiums in Cambodia: Dummy Variables Revisited and Recent Data," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 12(3), pages 339–345-3, September.
    20. Green, David A. & Worswick, Christopher, 2012. "Immigrant earnings profiles in the presence of human capital investment: Measuring cohort and macro effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 241-259.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Immigrant Workers; Wages; Enclaves; Linguistic Proficiency; Work Language;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2009-50. 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: Vivian Tran (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.clsrn.econ.ubc.ca/ .

    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.