Immigrant Labour Market Outcomes: New Insights from a Lack of Language Proficiency in Italy

Luca Pieroni, G. d’Agostino, D. Lanari and Margherita Scarlato
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G. d’Agostino: Roma Tre University
D. Lanari: University of Perugia

Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, 2024, vol. 10, issue 1, No 11, 293-327

Abstract: Abstract In this paper, we examine how immigrants’ proficiency in the Italian language affects their labour market performance using hitherto unexploited immigration survey published by the Italian Institute of Statistics. With respect to immigrants with good proficiency in the Italian language, our empirical findings suggest that weak language proficiency reduces the probability to be employed by about 25–30 percentage points. Language proficiency in Italian also significantly affects the hourly wages of immigrants. The point estimates suggest an hourly wage gap of more than 30% between immigrants with good proficiency in the Italian language compared to those with weak proficiency, irrespective of gender. Robustness checks confirmed our estimates.

Keywords: Immigrants; Language skills; Employment; Hourly wages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J20 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Working Paper: Immigrant labour market outcomes: new insights from a lack of language proficiency in Italy (2022)
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DOI: 10.1007/s40797-022-00216-0

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