This paper considers the role of language in employment outcomes and labour earnings in South Africa over the period 1996--8. Our pooled cross-section comprises more than 160,000 working-age adults, and the analysis considers the decision to participate in the labour force, employment outcomes and labour earnings. After conditioning on a number of socio-economic and demographic factors, we find that having English as one's mother tongue is one of the pivotal determinants of employment and labour earnings. Allowing for language effects leads to a much diminished role of race/population group as a driver of labour market success and earnings. There seems to be little variation in employment outcomes or earnings across the different African languages. Copyright 2008 The author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for the Study of African Economies. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 17 (2008) Issue (Month): 3 (June) Pages: 490-525 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
Contact details of provider: Postal: Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK Fax: 01865 267 985 Email: Web page: http://www.jae.oupjournals.org/