IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v131y2016ipap151-165.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ethnic concentration and language fluency of immigrants: Evidence from the guest-worker placement in Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Danzer, Alexander M.
  • Yaman, Firat

Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of regional ethnic concentration on the language proficiency and language use of immigrants. It solves the endogeneity of immigrants’ location choices by exploiting a peculiar episode of the German immigration history: the exogenous placement of guest-workers after WWII, one of the largest guest-worker programs on record. The econometric approach accounts for several sources of measurement error and provides a falsification exercise that hypothetically relocates the most language proficient immigrants into ethnic enclaves to test the extent of cross-regional sorting necessary to render the results purely spurious. The results show a robust negative effect of ethnic concentration on immigrants’ language ability which is driven by differences in contact rates with natives and not by differences in the willingness to integrate. The paper discusses these findings against the background of a language production function and in the light of feasible policy options to foster the language acquisition of immigrants.

Suggested Citation

  • Danzer, Alexander M. & Yaman, Firat, 2016. "Ethnic concentration and language fluency of immigrants: Evidence from the guest-worker placement in Germany," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 151-165.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:131:y:2016:i:pa:p:151-165
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2016.08.012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268116301792
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2016.08.012?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alexander M. Danzer & Firat Yaman, 2013. "Do Ethnic Enclaves Impede Immigrants' Integration? Evidence from a Quasi-experimental Social-interaction Approach," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 311-325, May.
    2. Paul W. Miller & Barry R. Chiswick, 2002. "Immigrant earnings: Language skills, linguistic concentrations and the business cycle," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(1), pages 31-57.
    3. Sylke Schnepf, 2007. "Immigrants’ educational disadvantage: an examination across ten countries and three surveys," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 20(3), pages 527-545, July.
    4. Glitz, Albrecht, 2014. "Ethnic segregation in Germany," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 28-40.
    5. Thomas Bauer & Gil Epstein & Ira Gang, 2005. "Enclaves, language, and the location choice of migrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 18(4), pages 649-662, November.
    6. Chiswick, Barry R & Miller, Paul W, 1995. "The Endogeneity between Language and Earnings: International Analyses," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(2), pages 246-288, April.
    7. Eric D. Gould & Victor Lavy & M. Daniele Paserman, 2004. "Immigrating to Opportunity: Estimating the Effect of School Quality Using a Natural Experiment on Ethiopians in Israel," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 489-526.
    8. George J. Borjas, 2021. "Ethnicity, Neighborhoods, and Human-Capital Externalities," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 7, pages 135-160, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Anna Piil Damm, 2009. "Ethnic Enclaves and Immigrant Labor Market Outcomes: Quasi-Experimental Evidence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(2), pages 281-314, April.
    10. Edward P. Lazear, 1999. "Culture and Language," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 95-126, December.
    11. Christian Dustmann & Francesca Fabbri, 2003. "Language proficiency and labour market performance of immigrants in the UK," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(489), pages 695-717, July.
    12. Hoyt Bleakley & Aimee Chin, 2004. "Language Skills and Earnings: Evidence from Childhood Immigrants," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 481-496, May.
    13. Barry Chiswick & Yew Lee & Paul Miller, 2005. "Family matters: the role of the family in immigrants' destination language acquisition," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 18(4), pages 631-647, November.
    14. Hausman, J. A. & Abrevaya, Jason & Scott-Morton, F. M., 1998. "Misclassification of the dependent variable in a discrete-response setting," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 239-269, September.
    15. Berman, Eli & Lang, Kevin & Siniver, Erez, 2003. "Language-skill complementarity: returns to immigrant language acquisition," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 265-290, June.
    16. Christian Dustmann & Arthur van Soest, 2001. "Language Fluency And Earnings: Estimation With Misclassified Language Indicators," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(4), pages 663-674, November.
    17. Paolo Verme & Chiara Gigliarano & Christina Wieser & Kerren Hedlund & Marc Petzoldt & Marco Santacroce, 2016. "The Welfare of Syrian Refugees," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 23228, December.
    18. Per-Anders Edin & Peter Fredriksson & Olof Åslund, 2003. "Ethnic Enclaves and the Economic Success of Immigrants—Evidence from a Natural Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 329-357.
    19. Casey Warman, 2007. "Ethnic enclaves and immigrant earnings growth," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 40(2), pages 401-422, May.
    20. Christian Dustmann & Arthur Van Soest, 2002. "Language and the Earnings of Immigrants," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 55(3), pages 473-492, April.
    21. Eric D. Gould & Victor Lavy & M. Daniele Paserman, 2011. "Sixty Years after the Magic Carpet Ride: The Long-Run Effect of the Early Childhood Environment on Social and Economic Outcomes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(3), pages 938-973.
    22. Gert G. Wagner & Joachim R. Frick & Jürgen Schupp, 2007. "The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) – Scope, Evolution and Enhancements," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 127(1), pages 139-169.
    23. Cutler, David M. & Glaeser, Edward L. & Vigdor, Jacob L., 2008. "When are ghettos bad? Lessons from immigrant segregation in the United States," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 759-774, May.
    24. Dustmann C. & Van Soest A., 2004. "An Analysis of Speaking Fluency of Immigrants Using Ordered Response Models With Classification Errors," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22, pages 312-321, July.
    25. Gilles Grenier, 1984. "The Effects of Language Characteristics on the Wages of Hispanic-American Males," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 19(1), pages 35-52.
    26. Richard Alba & John Logan & Amy Lutz & Brian Stults, 2002. "Only English by the third generation? Loss and preservation of the mother tongue among the grandchildren of contemporary immigrants," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 39(3), pages 467-484, August.
    27. Borjas, George J., 1998. "To Ghetto or Not to Ghetto: Ethnicity and Residential Segregation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 228-253, September.
    28. Barry Chiswick & Paul Miller, 2001. "A model of destination-language acquisition: Application to male immigrants in Canada," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(3), pages 391-409, August.
    29. Dustmann, Christian, 1994. "Speaking Fluency, Writing Fluency and Earnings of Migrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 7(2), pages 133-156.
    30. Albrecht Glitz, 2012. "The Labor Market Impact of Immigration: A Quasi-Experiment Exploiting Immigrant Location Rules in Germany," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(1), pages 175-213.
    31. Aldashev, Alisher & Gernandt, Johannes & Thomsen, Stephan L., 2009. "Language usage, participation, employment and earnings: Evidence for foreigners in West Germany with multiple sources of selection," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 330-341, June.
    32. David M. Cutler & Edward L. Glaeser, 1997. "Are Ghettos Good or Bad?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(3), pages 827-872.
    33. Anita I. Drever, 2004. "Separate Spaces, Separate Outcomes? Neighbourhood Impacts on Minorities in Germany," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(8), pages 1423-1439, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kai Ingwersen & Stephan L. Thomsen, 2021. "The immigrant-native wage gap in Germany revisited," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(4), pages 825-854, December.
    2. Constant, Amelie F. & Schüller, Simone & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2013. "Ethnic Spatial Dispersion and Immigrant Identity," IZA Discussion Papers 7868, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Brücker, Herbert & Hauptmann, Andreas & Jaschke, Philipp, 2020. "Beschränkungen der Wohnortwahl für anerkannte Geflüchtete: Wohnsitzauflagen reduzieren die Chancen auf Arbeitsmarktintegration (Restrictions on the choice of residence for recognized refugees: Residen," IAB-Kurzbericht 202003, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    4. Berbée, Paul & Stuhler, Jan, 2023. "The integration of migrants in the German labor market: Evidence over 50 years," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-020, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Alexander M. Danzer & Carsten Feuerbaum & Marc Piopiunik & Ludger Woessmann, 2022. "Growing up in ethnic enclaves: language proficiency and educational attainment of immigrant children," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(3), pages 1297-1344, July.
    6. Stips, Felix & Kis-Katos, Krisztina, 2020. "Ethnic Networks and the Employment of Asylum Seekers: Evidence from Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 12903, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. María Tomé-Fernández & Christian Fernández-Leyva & Eva María Olmedo-Moreno, 2020. "Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Social Skills Scale for Young Immigrants," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-20, August.
    8. Monteiro, Stein, 2021. "Cultural Assimilation: Learning and Sorting," MPRA Paper 110997, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Laliberté, Jean-William, 2019. "Language skill acquisition in immigrant social networks: Evidence from Australia," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 35-45.
    10. Eric Schuss, 2020. "Do Ethnic Networks Ameliorate Education–Occupation Mismatch?," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 34(4), pages 441-476, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alexander M. Danzer & Firat Yaman, 2010. "Ethnic Concentration and Language Fluency of Immigrants in Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 277, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    2. Danzer, A. M. & Yaman, F., 2011. "Ethnic concentration and language fluency of immigrants in Germany," Working Papers 11/09, Department of Economics, City University London.
    3. Dustmann, Christian & Glitz, Albrecht, 2011. "Migration and Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 327-439, Elsevier.
    4. Laliberté, Jean-William, 2019. "Language skill acquisition in immigrant social networks: Evidence from Australia," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 35-45.
    5. Alexander M. Danzer & Carsten Feuerbaum & Marc Piopiunik & Ludger Woessmann, 2022. "Growing up in ethnic enclaves: language proficiency and educational attainment of immigrant children," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(3), pages 1297-1344, July.
    6. Isphording, Ingo E. & Otten, Sebastian, 2014. "Linguistic barriers in the destination language acquisition of immigrants," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 30-50.
    7. Antonio Di Paolo & Aysit Tansel, 2015. "Returns to Foreign Language Skills in a Developing Country: The Case of Turkey," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(4), pages 407-421, April.
    8. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2014. "International Migration and the Economics of Language," IZA Discussion Papers 7880, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Åslund, Olof & Engdahl, Mattias, 2018. "The value of earning for learning: Performance bonuses in immigrant language training," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 192-204.
    10. repec:zbw:rwirep:0536 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Antonio Di Paolo & Aysit Tansel, 2015. "Returns to Foreign Language Skills in a Developing Country: The Case of Turkey," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(4), pages 407-421, April.
    12. Schaffner, Sandra & Treude, Barbara, 2014. "The Effect of Ethnic Clustering on Migrant Integration in Germany," Ruhr Economic Papers 536, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    13. Bonin, Holger & Rinne, Ulf, 2017. "Machbarkeitsstudie zur Durchführung einer Evaluation der arbeitsmarktpolitischen Integrationsmaßnahmen für Flüchtlinge," IZA Research Reports 76, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Antonio Di Paolo & Josep Lluís Raymond, 2012. "Language Knowledge and Earnings in Catalonia," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 89-118, May.
    15. Aldashev, Alisher & Gernandt, Johannes & Thomsen, Stephan L., 2009. "Language usage, participation, employment and earnings: Evidence for foreigners in West Germany with multiple sources of selection," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 330-341, June.
    16. Aoki, Yu & Santiago, Lualhati, 2018. "Deprivation, Segregation, and Socioeconomic Class of UK Immigrants: Does English Proficiency Matter?," IZA Discussion Papers 11368, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Davia, María A. & Wang, Ting & Gámez, Matías, 2019. "Language proficiency and immigrants’ labor market outcomes in post-crisis Spain," MPRA Paper 94795, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Andersson, Fredrik W. & Burgess, Simon & Lane, Julia, 2009. "Do as the Neighbors Do: The Impact of Social Networks on Immigrant Employment," IZA Discussion Papers 4423, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Jens Ruhose, 2013. "Educational Achievements of Migrants and their Determinants: Part II: Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Education," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 66(10), pages 24-38, May.
    20. De Paola, Maria & Brunello, Giorgio, 2016. "Education as a Tool for the Economic Integration of Migrants," IZA Discussion Papers 9836, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Guest-worker program; Enclave; Ethnic concentration; Human capital; Immigrant; Migrant sorting; Integration; Misclassification error; Hypothetical relocation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:131:y:2016:i:pa:p:151-165. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.