IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cge/wacage/774.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Century of Language Barriers to Migration in India

Author

Listed:
  • Chaudhary, Latika

    (Naval Postgraduate School)

  • Dupraz, Yannick

    (Paris Dauphine University, PSL University, LEDA, CNRS, IRD)

  • Fenske, James

    (University of Warwick and CAGE)

Abstract

Combining detailed data on language and migration across colonial Indian districts in 1901 with a gravity model, we find origin and destination districts separated by more dissimilar languages saw less migration. We control for the physical distance between origin-destination pairs, several measures of dissimilarity in geographic characteristics, as well as origin and destination fixed effects. The results are robust to a regression discontinuity design that exploits spatial boundaries across language groups. We also find linguistic differences predict lower migration in 2001. Cultural channels are a small part of the link from linguistic diversity to lower migration. Rather, the evidence suggests communication and information channels are more important.

Suggested Citation

  • Chaudhary, Latika & Dupraz, Yannick & Fenske, James, 2025. "A Century of Language Barriers to Migration in India," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 774, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cge:wacage:774
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/wp774.2025.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bahrami-Rad, Duman & Becker, Anke & Henrich, Joseph, 2021. "Tabulated nonsense? Testing the validity of the Ethnographic Atlas," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    2. Gharad Bryan & Shyamal Chowdhury & Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, 2014. "Underinvestment in a Profitable Technology: The Case of Seasonal Migration in Bangladesh," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(5), pages 1671-1748, September.
    3. McManus, Walter S, 1985. "Labor Market Costs of Language Disparity: An Interpretation of Hispanic Earnings Differences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 818-827, September.
    4. Nathan Nunn & Diego Puga, 2012. "Ruggedness: The Blessing of Bad Geography in Africa," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 20-36, February.
    5. Alícia Adserà & Mariola Pytliková, 2015. "The Role of Language in Shaping International Migration," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(586), pages 49-81, August.
    6. 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.
    7. Dave Donaldson, 2018. "Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(4-5), pages 899-934, April.
    8. 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.
    9. Samuel Bazzi & Matthew Gudgeon, 2021. "The Political Boundaries of Ethnic Divisions," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 235-266, January.
    10. Benjamin Marx & Vincent Pons & Tavneet Suri, 2021. "Diversity and Team Performance in a Kenyan Organization," Sciences Po Economics Publications (main) hal-03873741, HAL.
    11. David Atkin, 2013. "Trade, Tastes, and Nutrition in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1629-1663, August.
    12. Elizabeth Lyons, 2017. "Team Production in International Labor Markets: Experimental Evidence from the Field," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 70-104, July.
    13. Bishnupriya Gupta, 2011. "Wages, unions, and labour productivity: evidence from Indian cotton mills," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 64(s1), pages 76-98, February.
    14. Yotov, Yoto V., 2012. "A simple solution to the distance puzzle in international trade," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 794-798.
    15. Buch, Claudia M. & Kleinert, Jorn & Toubal, Farid, 2004. "The distance puzzle: on the interpretation of the distance coefficient in gravity equations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 293-298, June.
    16. Hoyt Bleakley & Aimee Chin, 2010. "Age at Arrival, English Proficiency, and Social Assimilation among US Immigrants," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 165-192, January.
    17. Andrew Dickens, 2022. "Understanding Ethnolinguistic Differences: The Roles of Geography and Trade," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(643), pages 953-980.
    18. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249, April.
    19. Zovanga L Kone & Maggie Y Liu & Aaditya Mattoo & Caglar Ozden & Siddharth Sharma, 2018. "Internal borders and migration in India," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(4), pages 729-759.
    20. Enrico Spolaore & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "The Diffusion of Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 469-529.
    21. David Lagakos & Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak & Michael E. Waugh, 2023. "The Welfare Effects of Encouraging Rural–Urban Migration," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(3), pages 803-837, May.
    22. Desmet, Klaus & Gomes, Joseph Flavian & Ortuño-Ortín, Ignacio, 2020. "The geography of linguistic diversity and the provision of public goods," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    23. Desmet, Klaus & Ortuño-Ortín, Ignacio & Wacziarg, Romain, 2012. "The political economy of linguistic cleavages," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 322-338.
    24. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 1997. "Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1203-1250.
    25. Bryan, Gharad & Morten, Melanie, 2019. "The aggregate productivity effects of internal migration: evidence from Indonesia," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 88177, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    26. Dominic Rohner & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2024. "The Economics of Nation-Building: Methodological Toolkit and Policy Lessons," CESifo Working Paper Series 11348, CESifo.
    27. Stelios Michalopoulos, 2012. "The Origins of Ethnolinguistic Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1508-1539, June.
    28. Cahit Guven & Asadul Islam, 2015. "Age at Migration, Language Proficiency, and Socioeconomic Outcomes: Evidence From Australia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(2), pages 513-542, April.
    29. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D Cattaneo & Max H Farrell, 2020. "Optimal bandwidth choice for robust bias-corrected inference in regression discontinuity designs," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 23(2), pages 192-210.
    30. Matthew Hall & George Farkas, 2008. "Does human capital raise earnings for immigrants in the low-skill labor market?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(3), pages 619-639, August.
    31. Kaivan Munshi & Mark Rosenzweig, 2016. "Networks and Misallocation: Insurance, Migration, and the Rural-Urban Wage Gap," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(1), pages 46-98, January.
    32. Joseph Flavian Gomes, 2020. "The health costs of ethnic distance: evidence from sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 195-226, June.
    33. Samuel Bazzi & Arya Gaduh & Alexander D. Rothenberg & Maisy Wong, 2019. "Unity in Diversity? How Intergroup Contact Can Foster Nation Building," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(11), pages 3978-4025, November.
    34. Alberto Alesina & Marco Tabellini, 2024. "The Political Effects of Immigration: Culture or Economics?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(1), pages 5-46, March.
    35. Fenske, James & Kala, Namrata, 2021. "Linguistic Distance and Market Integration in India," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 1-39, March.
    36. Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocío Titiunik, 2022. "Regression Discontinuity Designs," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 821-851, August.
    37. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2005. "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 43(3), pages 762-800, September.
    38. Matias D. Cattaneo & Luke Keele & Rocio Titiunik, 2021. "Covariate Adjustment in Regression Discontinuity Designs," Papers 2110.08410, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    39. Fenske, James & Gupta, Bishnupriya & Yuan, Song, 2022. "Demographic Shocks and Women’s Labor Market Participation: Evidence from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in India," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(3), pages 875-912, September.
    40. David Clingingsmith, 2014. "Industrialization and Bilingualism in India," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(1), pages 73-109.
    41. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Lawrence F. Katz, 2016. "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 855-902, April.
    42. Sarit Cohen-Goldner & Zvi Eckstein, 2008. "Labor Mobility Of Immigrants: Training, Experience, Language, And Opportunities," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(3), pages 837-872, August.
    43. Martin Bell & Elin Charles-Edwards & Philipp Ueffing & John Stillwell & Marek Kupiszewski & Dorota Kupiszewska, 2015. "Internal Migration and Development: Comparing Migration Intensities Around the World," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 41(1), pages 33-58, March.
    44. Joan Esteban & Laura Mayoral & Debraj Ray, 2012. "Ethnicity and Conflict: An Empirical Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1310-1342, June.
    45. Jain, Tarun, 2017. "Common Tongue: The Impact of Language on Educational Outcomes," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(2), pages 473-510, June.
    46. Anne-Célia Disdier & Keith Head, 2008. "The Puzzling Persistence of the Distance Effect on Bilateral Trade," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(1), pages 37-48, February.
    47. Kaivan Munshi, 2019. "Caste and the Indian Economy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(4), pages 781-834, December.
    48. Fenske, James & Kala, Namrata & Wei, Jinlin, 2023. "Railways and cities in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    49. Daniel Auer & Johannes S. Kunz, 2025. "Communication Barriers and Infant Health: The Intergenerational Effect of Randomly Allocating Refugees across Language Regions," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 71-106, August.
    50. Laitin, David D. & Ramachandran, Rajesh, 2016. "Language Policy and Human Development," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 110(3), pages 457-480, August.
    51. Chaudhary, Latika & Fenske, James, 2023. "Railways, Development, and Literacy in India," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(4), pages 1139-1174, December.
    52. Matt Lowe, 2021. "Types of Contact: A Field Experiment on Collaborative and Adversarial Caste Integration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(6), pages 1807-1844, June.
    53. Michèle Belot & Sjef Ederveen, 2012. "Cultural barriers in migration between OECD countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(3), pages 1077-1105, July.
    54. Kaivan Munshi & Mark Rosenzweig, 2006. "Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World: Caste, Gender, and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1225-1252, September.
    55. Thomas Zylkin, 2019. "Verifying the Existence of Maximum Likelihood Estimates in Generalized Linear Models," 2019 Stata Conference 47, Stata Users Group.
    56. Sergio Correia & Paulo Guimarães & Tom Zylkin, 2020. "Fast Poisson estimation with high-dimensional fixed effects," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 20(1), pages 95-115, March.
    57. Andrew Dickens, 2018. "Population relatedness and cross-country idea flows: evidence from book translations," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 367-386, December.
    58. 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.
    59. David Reich & Kumarasamy Thangaraj & Nick Patterson & Alkes L. Price & Lalji Singh, 2009. "Reconstructing Indian population history," Nature, Nature, vol. 461(7263), pages 489-494, September.
    60. Andrew Dickens, 2018. "Ethnolinguistic Favoritism in African Politics," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 370-402, July.
    61. Imbert, Clément & Papp, John, 2020. "Costs and benefits of rural-urban migration: Evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    62. Sule Alan & Ceren Baysan & Mert Gumren & Elif Kubilay, 2021. "Building Social Cohesion in Ethnically Mixed Schools: An Intervention on Perspective Taking," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(4), pages 2147-2194.
    63. Ran Abramitzky & Leah Boustan & Elisa Jacome & Santiago Perez, 2021. "Intergenerational Mobility of Immigrants in the United States over Two Centuries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(2), pages 580-608, February.
    64. Gharad Bryan & Melanie Morten, 2019. "The Aggregate Productivity Effects of Internal Migration: Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(5), pages 2229-2268.
    65. Shelley Clark, 2000. "Son preference and sex composition of children: Evidence from india," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 37(1), pages 95-108, February.
    66. Marx, Benjamin & Pons, Vincent & Suri, Tavneet, 2021. "Diversity and team performance in a Kenyan organization☆," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Fenske, James & Kala, Namrata, 2021. "Linguistic Distance and Market Integration in India," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 1-39, March.
    2. Joseph Flavian Gomes, 2020. "The health costs of ethnic distance: evidence from sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 195-226, June.
    3. Selod, Harris & Shilpi, Forhad, 2021. "Rural-urban migration in developing countries: Lessons from the literature," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    4. Cemal Eren Arbatlı & Quamrul H. Ashraf & Oded Galor & Marc Klemp, 2020. "Diversity and Conflict," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 727-797, March.
    5. Andrew Dickens, 2017. "Ethnolinguistic Favoritism in African Politics," Working Papers 1702, Brock University, Department of Economics.
    6. Adelaide Baronchelli & Alessandra Foresta & Roberto Ricciuti, 2020. "The Words That Keep People Apart. Official Language, Accountability and Fiscal Capacity," CESifo Working Paper Series 8437, CESifo.
    7. Victor Ginsburgh & Shlomo Weber, 2020. "The Economics of Language," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(2), pages 348-404, June.
    8. Hodler, Roland & Valsecchi, Michele & Vesperoni, Alberto, 2021. "Ethnic geography: Measurement and evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    9. Mariko Nakagawa & Shonosuke Sugasawa, 2022. "Linguistic distance and economic development: A cross‐country analysis," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 793-834, May.
    10. Sundar Ponnusamy & Mohammad Abbas Hakeem, 2024. "Ethnic inequality and public health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(1), pages 41-58, January.
    11. Guillaume Blanc & Masahiro Kubo, 2023. "French," Economics Discussion Paper Series 2308, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    12. Hémet, Camille & Wren-Lewis, Liam & Mahoney, Jessica, 2023. "Decentralization, Ethnic Fractionalization, and Public Services: Evidence from Kenyan Healthcare," SocArXiv em3js, Center for Open Science.
    13. repec:osf:socarx:em3js_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Lochmann, Alexia & Rapoport, Hillel & Speciale, Biagio, 2019. "The effect of language training on immigrants’ economic integration: Empirical evidence from France," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 265-296.
    15. Gershman, Boris & Rivera, Diego, 2018. "Subnational diversity in Sub-Saharan Africa: Insights from a new dataset," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 231-263.
    16. Marigee Bacolod & Marcos A. Rangel, 2017. "Economic Assimilation and Skill Acquisition: Evidence From the Occupational Sorting of Childhood Immigrants," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(2), pages 571-602, April.
    17. Eva M. Buitrago & M. Ángeles Caraballo, 2022. "Measuring social diversity in economic literature: An overview for cross‐country studies," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 880-934, September.
    18. Artiles, Miriam, 2022. "Within-Group Heterogeneity in a Multi-Ethnic Society," MPRA Paper 112782, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Bertinelli, Luisito & Cömertpay, Rana & Maystadt, Jean-François, 2025. "Ethnic diversity and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from refugee-hosting areas," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    20. Alícia Adserà & Mariola Pytliková, 2015. "The Role of Language in Shaping International Migration," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(586), pages 49-81, August.
    21. Andrew Dickens, 2022. "Understanding Ethnolinguistic Differences: The Roles of Geography and Trade," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(643), pages 953-980.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • N35 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Asia including Middle East
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cge:wacage:774. 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: Jane Snape (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.html .

    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.