Education and Minority Language Loss: An Examination of Welsh and the 1870 Education Act

Benjamin Milner

No 2026-08, Working Papers from University of Alberta, Department of Economics

Abstract: Empirical work examining long-term effects of education policy on language transmission is rare. I address this deficiency by studying how the 1870 Education Act affected the propensity to speak Welsh within Wales. The Act introduced compulsory schooling in many areas, and greatly increased funding in others. Using a difference-in-differences design, I find that exposure to either treatment decreased a child’s likelihood of becoming a monoglot Welsh speaker in adulthood, yet increased the total number of speakers, as bilingualism improved among those raised in Anglophone households. This eventually reversed, however, as children of the treated became less likely to speak Welsh.

Keywords: Language; Education; Wales; Compulsory Schooling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I28 N13 N33 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 75
Date: 2026-06
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:albaec:023033

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