IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp9498.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Education, Health and Fertility of UK Immigrants: The Role of English Language Skills

Author

Listed:
  • Aoki, Yu

    (University of Aberdeen)

  • Santiago, Lualhati

    (Office for National Statistics, UK)

Abstract

This paper aims to identify the causal effect of English language skills on education, health and fertility outcomes of immigrants in England and Wales. We construct an instrument for language skills using age at arrival in the United Kingdom, exploiting the fact that young children learn languages more easily than older children and adults. Using a unique individual-level dataset that links 2011 census data to life event records for the population living in England and Wales, we find that better English language skills significantly lower the probability of having no qualifications and raise that of obtaining academic degrees, but do not affect child health and self-reported adult health. The impact of language on fertility outcomes is also considerable: Better English skills significantly delay the age at which a woman has her first child, lower the likelihood of becoming a teenage mother, and decrease fertility.

Suggested Citation

  • Aoki, Yu & Santiago, Lualhati, 2015. "Education, Health and Fertility of UK Immigrants: The Role of English Language Skills," IZA Discussion Papers 9498, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9498
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp9498.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Sarit Cohen Goldner & Gil Epstein, 2014. "Age at immigration and high school dropouts," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-20, December.
    3. SandraE. Black & PaulJ. Devereux & KjellG. Salvanes, 2008. "Staying in the Classroom and out of the maternity ward? The effect of compulsory schooling laws on teenage births," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 1025-1054, July.
    4. 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.
    5. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    6. Daniel T. Lichter & Kenneth M. Johnson & Richard N. Turner & Allison Churilla, 2012. "H ispanic Assimilation and Fertility in New U . S . Destinations," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(4), pages 767-791, December.
    7. 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.
    8. Gray Swicegood & Frank Bean & Elizabeth Stephen & Wolfgang Opitz, 1988. "Language usage and fertility in the Mexican-origin population of the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 25(1), pages 17-33, February.
    9. Cortes, Kalena E., 2006. "The effects of age at arrival and enclave schools on the academic performance of immigrant children," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 121-132, April.
    10. Clarke, Andrew & Isphording, Ingo E., 2015. "Language Barriers and Immigrant Health Production," IZA Discussion Papers 8846, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. 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.
    12. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    13. Corak, Miles, 2011. "Age at Immigration and the Education Outcomes of Children," IZA Discussion Papers 6072, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Jennifer Glick & Michael White, 2003. "academic trajectories of immigrant youths: Analysis within and across cohorts," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 40(4), pages 759-783, November.
    15. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2014. "International Migration and the Economics of Language," IZA Discussion Papers 7880, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Corak, Miles, 2011. "Age at Immigration and the Education Outcomes of Children," IZA Discussion Papers 6072, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Mevlude Akbulut-Yuksel & Hoyt Bleakley & Aimee Chin, 2010. "The Effects of English Proficiency among Childhood Immigrants: Are Hispanics Different?," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1007, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    18. Böhlmark, Anders, 2008. "Age at immigration and school performance: A siblings analysis using swedish register data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1366-1387, December.
    19. Alicia Adsera & Ana Ferrer, 2014. "Factors influencing the fertility choices of child immigrants in Canada," Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 68(1), pages 65-79, March.
    20. Sunmin Lee & Allison H O’Neill & Emily S Ihara & David H Chae, 2013. "Change in Self-Reported Health Status among Immigrants in the United States: Associations with Measures of Acculturation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-1, October.
    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. Andrew Clarke & Ingo E. Isphording, 2017. "Language Barriers and Immigrant Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(6), pages 765-778, June.
    2. Marcus Dillender, 2017. "English Skills and the Health Insurance Coverage of Immigrants," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 3(3), pages 312-345, Summer.
    3. Clarke, Damian & Mühlrad, Hanna, 2016. "The Impact of Abortion Legalization on Fertility and Maternal Mortality: New Evidence from Mexico," Working Papers in Economics 661, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    4. Arnaud Herault, 2019. "Occupational mismatch and network effects: Evidence from France," Post-Print hal-02860048, HAL.
    5. Fischer, Martin & Karlsson, Martin & Prodromidis, Nikolaos, 2021. "Long‐term Effects of Hospital Deliveries," CINCH Working Paper Series (since 2020) 74712, Duisburg-Essen University Library, DuEPublico.
    6. Kronenberg, Christoph, 2020. "New(spaper) Evidence of a Reduction in Suicide Mentions during the 19th‐century US Gold Rush," CINCH Working Paper Series (since 2020) 73382, Duisburg-Essen University Library, DuEPublico.
    7. Elizabeth Lemmon, 2018. "Utilisation of personal care services in Scotland: the influence of unpaid carers," CINCH Working Paper Series 1802, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Competent in Competition and Health.
    8. Arnaud Herault, 2019. "Occupational mismatch and network effects: Evidence from France," Post-Print hal-02860040, HAL.
    9. 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).

    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. Aoki, Yu & Santiago, Lualhati, 2018. "Speak better, do better? Education and health of migrants in the UK," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 1-17.
    2. Yu Aoki & Lualhati Santiago, 2015. "Fertility, Health and Education of UK Immigrants: The Role of English Language Skills," CINCH Working Paper Series 1510, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Competent in Competition and Health, revised Aug 2015.
    3. Sukanya Basu, 2018. "Age-of-Arrival Effects on the Education of Immigrant Children: A Sibling Study," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 474-493, September.
    4. 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.
    5. Lemmermann, Dominique & Riphahn, Regina T., 2018. "The causal effect of age at migration on youth educational attainment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 78-99.
    6. Yao, Yuxin, 2017. "Essays on economics of language and family economics," Other publications TiSEM 0093bc8e-e869-4f87-8ff8-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Yao, Y. & van Ours, J.C., 2015. "Language Skills and Labor Market Performance of Immigrants in the Netherlands," Discussion Paper 2015-010, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    8. Cahit Guven & Mevlude Akbulut‐Yuksel & Mutlu Yuksel, 2019. "Do English Skills Affect Muslim Immigrants’ Economic and Social Integration Differentially?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 95(310), pages 279-300, September.
    9. A. Di Liberto, 2013. "Length of stay in the host country and educational achievement of immigrant students: the Italian case," Working Paper CRENoS 201316, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    10. L. Pieroni & G. d’Agostino & D. Lanari & M. Scarlato, 2024. "Immigrant Labour Market Outcomes: New Insights from a Lack of Language Proficiency in Italy," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 10(1), pages 293-327, March.
    11. Pieroni, Luca & d'Agostino, Giorgio & Lanari, Donatella, 2019. "The effects of language skills on immigrant employment and wages in Italy," MPRA Paper 91725, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Marie C. Hull, 2023. "What divides the first and second generations? Family time of arrival and educational outcomes for immigrant youth," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 754-787, January.
    13. 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.
    14. 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).
    15. Yao, Yuxin & van Ours, Jan C., 2015. "Language skills and labor market performance of immigrants in the Netherlands," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 76-85.
    16. Gevrek, Deniz & Guven, Cahit & Gevrek, Z. Eylem, 2022. "The relationship between early-life conditions in the home country and adult outcomes among child immigrants in the United States," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    17. Bonin, Holger, 2017. "The Potential Economic Benefits of Education of Migrants in the EU," IZA Research Reports 75, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Schuss Eric, 2018. "The Impact of Language Skills on Immigrants’ Labor Market Integration: A Brief Revision With a New Approach," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 18(4), pages 1-19, October.
    19. Clarke, Andrew & Isphording, Ingo E., 2015. "Language Barriers and Immigrant Health Production," IZA Discussion Papers 8846, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    language skills; education; health; fertility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    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:iza:izadps:dp9498. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.