Linguistic Traits and Human Capital Formation

Oded Galor, Ömer Özak and Assaf Sarid

No 570, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: This research establishes empirically that existing cross-language variations in the structure of the future tense and the presence of grammatical gender affected human capital accumulation. Exploiting variations in the dominant languages among migrants from the same countries of origin, the study explores the impact of these traits on the educational attainment of second generation migrants in the US. The results suggest that college attendance among individuals with identical ancestry is (i) higher if the dominating language at home has a periphrastic future tense, and (ii) lower for women exposed predominantly to sex-based grammatical gender.

Keywords: Comparative Development; Human Capital; Education; Language Structure; Future Tense; Grammatical Gender; Cultural Evolution; Gender Bias; Long-term Orientation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J16 Z10 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Linguistic Traits and Human Capital Formation (2020)
Working Paper: Linguistic Traits and Human Capital Formation (2020)
Working Paper: Linguistic Traits and Human Capital Formation (2020)
Working Paper: Linguistic Traits and Human Capital Formation (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:570

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