Does Foreign Language Proficiency Foster Migration of Young Individuals within the European Union?

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.IZA Discussion Paper No. 8250 June 2014 ABSTRACT Does Foreign Language Proficiency Foster Migration of Young Individuals within the European Union?Speaking the language of the host country eases migrants' integration and tends to boost their economic success in the country of destination. However, the decision to acquire language skills may in itself be determined by the intention to migrate. In addition, conditional on being a migrant, the relation between language skills and migrants' integration and economic success goes both ways. Using data on the study of foreign languages during compulsory education in European countries, we test whether and how much language proficiency determines migration flows across Europe. The European Union with basically unlimited labor mobility and pronounced differences in youth unemployment rates provides an ideal testing ground for our hypothesis. We find that speaking the language of a country increases the likelihood to migrate to that country almost fivefold.JEL Classification: J61, I20, F22

“You Better Move On”: Determinants and Labor Market Outcomes of Graduate Migration from Italy

“…Moreover, transaction costs associated with access to housing and paperwork needed for migration must be taken into account as costs of international resettlement. Additionally, language barriers play a critical role, especially in a multilingual mosaic like the European Union (Aparicio Fenoll and Kuehn 2014; Adsera and Pytlikova 2015). This constraint is particularly important in Italy, where proficiency in foreign languages is comparatively weak (Eurobarometer 2012).…”

Immigrants move where their skills are scarce: Evidence from English proficiency

“…In previous work (Aparicio Fenoll and Kuehn [2016]) we showed that languages learned during compulsory education increase migration especially towards countries where these languages are official, easing migrants' integration. The current paper is motivated by findings in literature that the impact of immigrants on natives' labor market outcomes crucially depends on the substitutability or complementarity of natives' and migrants' skills.…”

“…How-ever, regarding the second result and different from the current paper, the authors do not study how choice of destination country might differ by migrants' English skills. In Aparicio-Fenoll and Kuehn [2016], we analyze the effect that studying a foreign language during compulsory education has on the number of individuals that move to countries where this language is official, and we find a positive effect. Different from our previous work, the current paper focuses on acquired skills of migrants and natives, and how the interaction between both affects migration choices.…”

TV or not TV? The impact of subtitling on English skills

“…2 The minimum is in the region of Flanders in Belgium and the maximum in the Netherlands, Norway, and Luxembourg. 3 In 2004 a British survey discussed by the BBC showed that only one in 10 UK workers could speak a foreign language and less than 5 percent could count to 20 in a second language (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3930963.stm).…”

“…2 In comparison, pupils in England and Wales have foreign languages for …ve and three years, respectively, and there are no requirements in Ireland and Scotland. 3 Despite the huge amounts of time and money spent, disparities in the quality of English across countries are very large. In places such as the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden, more than 80 percent of citizens state that they are able to hold a conversation in English, but the proportion is below 60 percent in some of their neighboring countries like Belgium, Austria, and Finland (European Commission, 2006).…”