The long-term effects of bilingualism on children of immigration: student bilingualism and future earnings

Abstract

Link to publication General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. Download date: 11 May 2018The long-term effects of bilingualism on children of immigration: student bilingualism and future earnings Orhan Agirdag* Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium In this study, we examine the largely neglected long-term effects of bilingualism for students with roots in immigration. Our central research question is whether students' bilingual proficiencies have an impact on their future earnings in the USA. For this purpose, we used two different data-sets, i.e. the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) and the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS). Based on Latent Class Analysis, we distinguish between three linguistic minority groups: limited bilinguals, balanced bilinguals and English-dominant group. For both CILS and NELS, the results of regression analyses show that balanced bilingual students earn significantly more as adults at the beginning of their career than those linguistic minorities who were dominantly proficient in English only. Even after controlling for cognitive ability, educational attainment and parental socio-economic status, the additional cost of complete linguistic assimilation is estimated at $2100Á$3300 annually. The NELSdata also suggest that balanced bilingualism has an additional indirect effect through academic attainment. Policy implications of these results are discussed.

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