IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp18421.html

Language Skills and Labor Market Outcomes of Immigrants in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Aydemir, Abdurrahman

    (Sabanci University)

  • Girisken, Ahmet

    (Stockholm School of Economics)

Abstract

This paper studies the causal impact of language skills on human capital accumulation, labor market outcomes, and job characteristics of childhood immigrants across European countries. Using PIAAC data, we adopt an instrumental variable strategy based on the critical age hypothesis and linguistic distance. Our IV results show that higher language proficiency boosts human capital accumulation through formal schooling and actual labor market experience, resulting in improved labor market outcomes in terms of earnings and hours of work. Language proficiency also affects job tasks, increasing employment of reading and abstract tasks while decreasing physical work, and reduces education-job mismatch. These results indicate that language proficiency plays a significant role in enhancing productivity of immigrants in the European context.

Suggested Citation

  • Aydemir, Abdurrahman & Girisken, Ahmet, 2026. "Language Skills and Labor Market Outcomes of Immigrants in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 18421, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18421
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp18421.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    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:iza:izadps:dp18421. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.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.