Foreign Languages and their Impact on Unemployment

Donado, Alejandro

doi:10.1111/labr.12097

Cited by 17 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Recent evidence from a group of western European countries suggests that men receive higher returns for various foreign language skills than women, a finding that is indicative of some form of discrimination against women linked to this specific type of human capital [8]. Another piece of cross-country evidence, on the other hand, suggests that foreign language proficiency reduces the risk of unemployment more for women than for men [2]. The limited evidence on this from transition countries is inconclusive.…”

Section: Gender Bias In Rewards For Language Skills?mentioning

confidence: 95%

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Returns to language skills in transition economies

Mavisakalyan¹

2017

izawol

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Section: Gender Bias In Rewards For Language Skills?mentioning

confidence: 95%

“…A large body of literature documents positive labor market returns for immigrants who are proficient in host-country languages. There are also positive returns to foreign language proficiency by natives in developed countries [2].…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Returns to language skills in transition economies

Mavisakalyan¹

2017

izawol

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“…Accounting for this conditioning would substantially complicate the procedure. 13 We summarize in what follows the results of the sensitivity analysis outlined above. Table 7 to Table 9 present the estimated model parameters from the sensitivity analysis for the local ML3 point under unconfoundedness in Table 6.…”

Section: Sensitivity Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Language Training Programs in Luxembourg using Principal Stratification

2019

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In a world increasingly globalized, multiple language skills can create more employment opportunities. Several countries include language training programs in active labor market programs for the unemployed. We analyze the effects of a language training program on the re-employment probability and hourly wages of the unemployed simultaneously, using highquality administrative data from Luxembourg. We address selection into training by exploiting the rich administrative information available, and account for the complication that wages are "truncated" by unemployment by adopting a principal stratification framework. Estimation is undertaken with a mixture model likelihood-based approach. To improve inference, we use the individual's hours worked as a secondary outcome and a stochastic dominance assumption. These two features considerably ameliorate the multimodality problem commonly encountered in mixture models. We also conduct sensitivity analysis to assess the unconfoundedness assumption employed. Our results strongly suggest a positive effect (of up to 12.7 percent) of the language training programs on the re-employment probability, but no effects on wages for those who are observed employed regardless of training participation. It appears that, in the context of an open and multilingual economy, language training improve employability but the language skills acquired are not sufficiently rewarded to be reflected in higher wages.

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“…The results indicate that in the Visegrad region skills in English, and to a lesser extent German, are in high demand. The third study (Donado 2017) investigates the conditional impact of knowing foreign languages on the likelihood of unemployment in different European countries using a repeated cross-section of more than 124,000 native residents (immigrants are excluded) aged 15 and over from 31 European countries. The data come from various waves of Eurostat's Eurobarometer surveys covering the period between 1990 and 2012.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foreign language skills and employment status of European natives: evidence from Germany, Italy and Spain

Gazzola

Mazzacani

2019

Empirica

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This article examines the relationship between foreign language skills and the employment status of natives in Germany, Italy and Spain. Using a probit model and data from Eurostat's Adult Education Survey 2011, this article studies the conditional correlation between knowledge of English and French as foreign languages, and the probability of being employed, comparatively, for men and women. The results reveal that skills in English increase the probability of being employed for men in the three countries, respectively, by 3.4, 4.3 and 5.2%. Knowledge of English increases the probability of being employed for women in Germany and Italyrespectively, by 5.6 and 5.7%-but not in Spain. The results also show that very good skills are associated with a higher probability of being employed than sufficient or good skills. The conditional correlation between knowledge of English and employment status for men is larger in countries where skills in this language are less common among the population, and where the unemployment rate is higher. This is consistent with the fundamental economic concept of scarcity. Estimates for French are not statistically significant.

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Foreign Languages and their Impact on Unemployment

Cited by 17 publications

References 26 publications

Returns to language skills in transition economies

Returns to language skills in transition economies

Evaluation of Language Training Programs in Luxembourg using Principal Stratification

Foreign language skills and employment status of European natives: evidence from Germany, Italy and Spain

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