The value of sign and print: Language proficiency predicts deaf signers’ occupational prestige and income

Abstract

Deaf bilinguals' language proficiency, job prestige and earnings

Host language proficiency has a causal effect on immigrants’ income, savings and financial wealth

“…In addition, we generated the following independent variables: IQ, risk aversion, education (high; low), patience (time preference), financial knowledge, self-control, saving intention and financial future time perspective (live_for_present). As people's temporal values may influence their financial well-being (see Zheng et al, 2023), we generated a Temporal-focus Index (TFI) for each participant, TFI = (mean of future-focused itemsmean of past-focused items)/(mean of future-focused items + mean of past-focused items) (de la Fuente et al, 2014). Moreover, we control for demographic factors children number, gender (male1), age, partner, generation2, and education (highedu1).…”

“…Studies investigating the relationship between language proficiency and immigrants' labour market performance have shown that host-country language proficiency has an impact on employment possibilities and earnings. For example, researchers have found a relation between speaking and writing proficiency and immigrants' earnings in Germany (Dustmann, 1994), between language skills and employment possibility of immigrants in the UK (Dustmann & Fabbri, 2003), Italy (Luca et al, 2022), and Switzerland (Wong, 2022), between English proficiency, age of arrival, and earnings among US immigrants (Bleakley & Chin, 2004), and between sign language proficiency of Chinese deaf signers and their occupational prestige and income (Zheng, Lin & Gu, 2023). Recent studies also suggest that there is an effect of language proficiency on the gender wage gap (Miranda & Zhu, 2020), for example due to a negative effect of immigrants' language problems on females' hourly wages (Yao & van Ours, 2015).…”