From Engineer to Taxi Driver? Language Proficiency and the Occupational Skills of Immigrants

Susumu Imai, Derek Stacey and Casey Warman

No 18, Working Paper Series from Economics Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney

Abstract: We examine the ability of male immigrants to transfer the occupational human capital they acquired prior to immigration using information from the O*NET and a unique dataset that includes both the last source country occupation and the first four years of occupations in Canada. We first augment a model of occupational choice to study the implications of language proficiency on the cross-border transferability of occupational human capital. We then test the empirical predictions using the skill requirements of pre- and post-immigration occupations. We find that male immigrants to Canada were employed in source country occupations that required high levels of cognitive skills, but relied less intently on manual skills. Following immigration, they find initial employment in occupations that require the opposite. These discrepancies are both larger and more detrimental to earnings among immigrants with limited language fluency.

Keywords: Occupational mobility; language proficiency; skills; human capital; immigration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J31 J61 J62 J71 J80 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2014-02-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: From engineer to taxi driver? Language proficiency and the occupational skills of immigrants (2019)
Journal Article: From engineer to taxi driver? Language proficiency and the occupational skills of immigrants (2019)
Working Paper: From Engineer to Taxi Driver? Language Proficiency and the Occupational Skills of Immigrants (2018)
Working Paper: From Engineer to Taxi Driver? Language Proficiency and the Occupational Skills of Immigrants (2018)
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