3. Exploring Bilingualism, Literacy, Employability and Income Levels among Latinos in the United States

Is There Really a Labor Market Advantage to Being Bilingual in the U.S.?

“…The History and Overview of the Language Minority Population in the United States section in this report deals with an overview of a study by Reynaldo Macías () on the history of language policies and practices in the United States from its founding, as well as a careful description of the many subgroups contained within the nation's largest non‐English group, Hispanics or Latinos, from a study by Sarah Moore and her colleagues (Moore, Fee, Ee, Wiley, & Arias, ) . In this second study, Moore et al paid particular attention to literacy, as they argued that this may be the critical dividing line between those bilinguals who are compensated for their linguistic skills and those who are not.…”

“…With respect to language categories, Alarcón et al () approached the data a bit differently than Robinson‐Cimpian () and Moore et al (). Language background is measured with three mutually exclusive categories: (a) monolingual English is defined as home language is English ; (b) limited English proficient is defined as home language is Spanish with English level not at all , not well , or well ; and (c) fluent bilingual is defined as home language is Spanish with English very well .…”

“…All of these factors result in different experiences in the labor market so that it is not possible to draw conclusions about a single Hispanic group. Sarah Moore and her colleagues at the Center for Applied Linguistics argued in their paper Exploring Bilingualism, Literacy, Employability and Income Levels Among Latinos in the United States, that in order to understand the role of language-in this case, Spanish-in the labor market, it is critical to understand the diversity of its speakers (Moore et al, 2014). Using the American Community Survey's (ACS) rolling 5-year average for 2007-2011(U.S. Census Bureau, 2012, these researchers explored the variation in employment, earnings, and language proficiency in both English and Spanish as self-reported in the federal data.…”

“…Because the data are relatively new or unique, more detail is provided about the sample profiles than for studies in the prior section, which relied on ACS data. These studies attempt to directly ask, and answer, questions about the potential impact on both educational and employment outcomes of balanced bilingualism, a definition that, while it differs to some extent for the different datasets, also includes an assessment of biliteracy, a human capital characteristic that Moore et al (2014) argued was an important asset to measure. Agirdag (2014) posed the question of whether there could actually be a cost associated with the loss of bilingualism among samples of individuals who have begun their educations with knowledge of a non-English language.…”

“…It becomes increasingly evident in the studies that follow this one that lack of precision about who is in the target group and what their actual proficiency is in both languages probably colors the findings of many labor market studies. Moore et al () divided Latinos into the seven major subgroups in the United States—Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Central American, South American, and other—and first examine their migration histories. Migration history, they note, is very significant to labor market participation, as some groups (e.g., Cubans, South Americans) tend to arrive with relatively high human and financial capital and legal status, while others (e.g., Mexican and Central Americans) tend to have exceptionally low levels of education and little capital, in addition to being disproportionately undocumented.…”