The role of regional languages in the integration of migrants in the Spanish labour market

Joan Martín-Montaner, Francisco Requena Silvente and Guadalupe Serrano
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Guadalupe Serrano: Universitat de València

No 2404, Working Papers from Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia

Abstract: We analyze the determinants of the internal and foreign migrants’ decision regarding their employment status and examine the importance of second-language proficiency in bilingual language economies. When arriving at a bilingual territory, migrants must decide which languages to learn. If one of the languages predominates in economic activity, there are less incentives for migrants to make the effort of learning the second language. However, if a local language contributes to build or strengthen a regional identity, learning it could help immigrants’ immersion in the receiving region. We use the Spanish Census in 2001, which exceptionally asked all participants about their knowledge of the co-official language in the bilingual regions. Our results show that second-language proficiency reduces the probability of being unemployed and stimulates self-employment. The impact becomes stronger among foreign migrants without Spanish as a first language and migrants arriving after primary school and living in non-urban areas.

Keywords: Immigrant's assimilation; languages proficiency; labor market; self-employment; sequential logit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J21 J22 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma, nep-mig and nep-ure
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