Family Matters: The Role of the Family in Immigrants' Destination Language Acquisition

Barry Chiswick, Yew Lee and Paul Miller
Additional contact information
Yew Lee: Department of Economics, The University of Western Australia

No 02-06, Economics Discussion / Working Papers from The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper is concerned with the relationship among family members in the determinants of destination language proficiency among immigrants. A model of immigrant language proficiency is augmented to include dynamics among family members. It is tested using data on a sample of recent immigrants. Chidlren are shown to have a negative effect on their mother's language proficiency, but no effect on their father's. There is a substantial positive correlation between the language skills of spouses. This is due to the correlation between spouses in both the measured determinants and the unmeasured determinants of destination language skills amoung spouses.

Keywords: Immigrants; Language Skills; Family; Longitudinal Data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J16 J24 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2002
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Family matters: the role of the family in immigrants' destination language acquisition (2005)
Working Paper: Family Matters: The Role of the Family in Immigrants' Destination Language Acquisition (2002)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uwa:wpaper:02-06

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