Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/202727 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 12381
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper estimates the returns to English-speaking fluency on the socioeconomic outcomes of childhood immigrants. We further investigate whether Muslim childhood immigrants face additional hurdles in economic and social integration into the host country. Motivated by the critical age hypothesis, we identify the causal effects of English skills on socioeconomic outcomes by exploring the differences in the country of origin and age at arrival across childhood immigrants. We first document that all childhood immigrants who migrate from non-English-speaking countries at a younger age attain higher levels of English skills. We also find that acquiring better English-language skills improves the educational attainment and labor and marriage market prospects of non-Muslim childhood immigrants significantly and increases their participation in volunteer work. However, our results show that while a good command of English enhances the educational attainments of Muslim childhood immigrants, it shows no positive return in either the labor or marriage markets. Our results also show that progress in English fails to improve Muslim childhood immigrants' engagement in voluntary work, meaning that the opportunity for social cohesion is missed.
Subjects: 
immigration
english proficiency
socioeconomic outcomes
Muslims
JEL: 
J12
J13
J24
J31
J61
J62
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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