LABOR MARKET ASSIMILATION OF IMMIGRANTS: THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE SKILLS

The pending Immigration Reform and Control Act (Simpson-Mazzoli) would require current illegal aliens to demonstrate minimal proficiency in English or to enroll in an English language class to attain permanent-resident status. This paper examines the importance of English language skills in the assimilation of immigrants. Data on 1975 earnings for men from 11 language /ethnic groups are used. English skills are found to play an important role in determining the earnings of immigrant and minority-language men in the U.S. Costs of deficiencies in English are substantial for most immigrants—more than $1,000 per year for eight of the 11 groups.     

Why do immigrant workers in Australia perform better than those in Canada? Is it the immigrants or their labour markets?

Research comparing the labour market performance of recent cohorts of immigrants to Australia and Canada points to superior employment and earnings outcomes in Australia. Examining Australian and Canadian Census data between 1986 and 2006, we find that this performance advantage is not driven by differences in broader labour market conditions affecting all new labour market entrants. Rather, the results from comparing immigrants from a common source country – either the U.K., India, or China – suggest that Australian immigrants perform better, particularly in average earnings, primarily because of a different source country distribution. Moreover, the recent tightening of Australian selection policy, most notably its use of mandatory pre‐migration English‐language testing, appears to be having an effect, primarily by further shifting the source country distribution of immigrants away from non‐English‐speaking source countries, rather than in identifying higher‐quality migrants within source countries.     

Neighbourhood effects,preference heterogeneity and immigrant educational attainment

This paper investigates differences between the educational attainment of immigrants, children of immigrants and native-born individuals in Australia by using Australian Youth Survey (AYS) data combined with aggregate Australian Census data. Differences in educational attainment are decomposed into: (i) typical demographic and socio-economic sources common to all ethnic groups; (ii) unobserved region of residence and region of origin effects; and (iii) neighbourhood effects such as degree and ethnic concentration of particular ethnic groups in different neighbourhoods. A theoretical model incorporating these effects is proposed but structural estimation is not possible for lack of appropriate data. Instead, a reduced form methodology is proposed and employed. The empirical results identify positive ethnic neighbourhood effects in high school completion and university enrolment for some immigrant groups in Australia, in particular first and second generation immigrants from Asia. The results indicate that it is not just the size of the ethnic network but the ‘quality’ of the network that is important.     

Should They Stay or Should They Go? Attitudes Towards Immigration in Europe

This paper examines the main determinants of individual attitudes towards immigration in Europe. Our results suggest that both economic and non‐economic variables shape attitudes towards immigration, but the relative importance of these factors depends crucially on the race/ethnicity of the arriving immigrants. While fears over labour market competition are more likely to shape attitudes towards the arrival of same race immigrants, more exposure to immigrants reduces opposition towards the arrival of different race immigrants. These findings persist after controlling for socioeconomic characteristics, and after exploiting the data to allow for cohort‐specific effects.     

Schooling and the Intergenerational Transmission of Values

We present a model of the evolution of identity via dynamic interaction between the choice of education and the transmission of values in a community from parents to children, when parents care about the preservation of their traditional community values, different from the values of the host society. We compare the educational and socioeconomic outcomes in different scenarios (melting pot versus multiculturalism). If schooling shifts children's identity away from their parents' values, parents may choose lower levels of education for their children, at the cost of reducing their future earnings. We show how this effect can be attenuated and reversed when the school or, indeed, the host society are willing to accommodate the values of the community and/or to adjust to these values; otherwise the community gradually becomes alienated. This approach may be applied to the analysis of temporal changes in values and attitudes in a community of immigrants, as well as ethnic, religious, or other minority groups.     

The English Language Fluency And Earnings Of Ethnic Minorities In Britain

This study addresses two issues. First it estimates how much of the male and female ethnic earnings gap is the result of an advantage in the English language and whether there is an earnings penalty to non–whites, over and above this. Lack of fluency is shown to have a highly significant impact on the earnings of ethnic minorities in Britain, although the language penalty is much greater for women than it is for men. Moreover, only foreign born non–white males that have arrived in Britain between 1970 and 1994, exhibit lower earnings once language fluency is taken into consideration, whilst British born females exhibit higher earnings. So the evidence here suggests that non–white earnings are assimilating towards those of whites and that lower female non–white earnings are a direct result of a lack of fluency rather than ethnicity. Secondly, the study will try to measure any endogenous bias associated with the non–fluency earnings penalty. Controlling for the endogeneity between language fluency and earnings is shown to be problematic. Estimates suggest that single equation earnings functions slightly underestimate the true language fluency penalty for males, and slightly overestimate the fluency penalty for females. Finally, education and fluency are not surprisingly shown to be complementary.     

IMMIGRANT SELECTION SYSTEMS AND IMMIGRANT HEALTH

This paper is an analysis of the determinants of self‐reported health status of immigrants, with a particular focus on the type of visa used to gain admission. The empirical analysis uses the three waves of the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia (panel I). Immigrant health is greater for immigrants who are younger, more educated, male, more proficient in English, and living outside an immigrant ethnic enclave. Immigrant health is poorest for refugees and best for independent (economic) migrants, and declines with duration in the destination. Alternative hypotheses for the decline in immigrant health with duration are explored (JEL I12, J15, J61, F22).     

英汉词语的国俗语义对比及翻译

世界上任何一个民族的语言都是在历史上长期形成的。任何语言都不独立于文化之外，换言之，语言与文化有着相当密切的关系，语言是文化的载体，受文化的影响并反映文化。语言反映一个民族的文化特征，因此，任何一个民族的语言都承载着该民族深厚的文化内涵。通过直译，意译，借代和直、意译结合的四种翻译方法，将对英语，汉语词语中带有国俗语义的词语进行对比，从而找到两种语言中等值的传递语言信息的最佳方案，获得语言文化信息的传递效果。     

从生态翻译学视角看全球化语境下汉语文化负载词的英译

汉语文化负载词负载着丰富的中华民族文化信息,其英译有助于中国传统文化的对外传输和中西文化的相互交流。全球化语境下,英语世界化和全球文化＂美国化＂趋势明显,英语文化负载词在汉语语境中的传输远多于汉语文化负载词在英语语境的传输,中西文化交流极不平衡。生态翻译学是一种生态学视角的翻译研究。按照生态翻译学观点,改善汉语文化负载词的翻译生态环境和优化其翻译策略可促进汉语文化负载词所负载的文化内涵在英语语境的传输,并维护汉语及其所负载的文化在全球语言文化生态系统中的民族身份和全球语言文化生态系统的平衡。     

The drowning-refugee effect: media salience and xenophobic attitudes

We study whether salient media coverage of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean affects individual xenophobic attitudes. We combine a randomized survey experiment – a variant of the classic ‘trolley dilemma’ – that implicitly elicits individual attitudes towards foreigners, with variation in interview timing, and find that such issue salience significantly decreases xenophobic attitudes by 2.2 percentage points. Our results thus support the idea that exposure to news describing immigrants as victims (instead of a threat) can significantly affect public opinion and mitigate bias against immigrants.     

Immigration and School Choice in Australia

This article examines the relationship between the share of immigrants in a locality and private versus public school choices of natives and immigrants in Australia. Using the 2001 Australian Census data, it finds that private school attendance among native‐born Australians is higher in localities with a higher share of immigrant populations. Immigrants’ private school attendance is lower where the share of their like‐type immigrants is higher. These effects vary with the presence of a common language and ethnic background between the natives and the immigrants. Overall, the results suggest the possibility of a ‘flight’ from unfamiliar cultures in the Australian school system.     

Do Selection Criteria Make a Difference?: Visa Category and the Labour Market Status of Immigrants to Australia

This paper assesses the role of selection criteria in the immigrant settlement process. Do skill-based immigrants have higher participation and employment rates than family-based immigrants? Does this represent a head start or a persistent labour market advantage? The Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia is used to address these questions. Generally, migrants selected for their skills have better labour market outcomes. Over time, the relative gap in participation rates increases, while the gap in employment rates decreases. Net of visa category, outcomes are better for native English speakers and for those who visited Australia prior to migration.     

Ethnic enclaves and immigrant earnings growth

Abstract.  The impact of living in an ethnic enclave on earnings growth of immigrants in Canada is examined using the 1981–2001 Censuses. Consistent with U.S. findings, enclaves are found to have a negative impact on the earnings growth of male immigrants. A negative impact is also found for female immigrants. Living in an enclave was found to be particularly harmful for individuals immigrating as adults, especially for females, but did not affect immigrants who arrived at a young age. Enclaves had a more negative impact on high-skilled male immigrants, especially if they had received the bulk of their education outside Canada. Enclaves were also found to hinder language skills.     

Birthplace diversity and economic prosperity

We propose an index of population diversity based on people’s birthplaces and decompose it into a size (share of immigrants) and a variety (diversity of immigrants) component. We show that birthplace diversity is largely uncorrelated with ethnic, linguistic or genetic diversity and that the diversity of immigrants relates positively to measures of economic prosperity. This holds especially for skilled immigrants in richer countries at intermediate levels of cultural proximity. We address endogeneity by specifying a pseudo-gravity model predicting the size and diversity of immigration. The results are robust across specifications and suggestive of skill-complementarities between immigrants and native workers.     

The impact of welfare benefits on natives' and immigrants' attitudes toward immigration

We investigate the effect of the relative welfare dependence of immigrants on attitudes toward further immigration of different groups of the population in a pooled cross-section of 24 European countries for the 2004–2010 period. Explicitly controlling for the dependence of immigrants and natives on welfare benefits we find that in countries with higher take-up rates among immigrants relative to natives pro-immigration attitudes, very robustly, increase more strongly with increasing educational attainment and, slightly less robustly, decline more strongly with the age of natives. Within the group of immigrants, by contrast, the impact of age on pro-immigration attitudes is more favorable with increasing relative benefit take-up of immigrants.     

大学英语写作教学中的障碍再分析

形成大学英语写作教学障碍的原因多种多样。英语教学本身的缺陷和误区、英语教师专业理论知识和语言习得理论知识不足、忽视英汉语之间的差异和对化素养的培养是形成大学英语写作教学障碍的重要因素。     

English Proficiency and Earnings of Foreign-Born Immigrants in the USA from 1980 to 2000: The Effect of Minority-Language Enclaves

This paper compares the importance of English proficiency (EP) on earnings among the foreign-born immigrants from 1980 to 2000 and shows its importance varied over time. The key issue examined is changes in the impact of being in a minority-language enclave and its interactions with the return to EP. Results show that the negative effects of enclaves were the greatest in 1990 and such effects were significantly stronger among those fluent English speakers. The relationship between EP and the enclave effects is explored, which confirms their strong interaction in 1990. However, the evidence of fluent speakers' large migrations from enclaves between 1990 and 2000 is not strong, as of the 24 foreign language groups, 13 showed decreases in fluency in enclaves relative to non-enclaves, while 11 showed increases in fluency in enclaves relative to non-enclaves. This may relate to non-wage benefits of living in enclaves, such as social benefits.     

DO PRIVATE TUTORS ENHANCE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ABILITY? REGRESSION DISCONTINUITY EVIDENCE FROM A POLICY EXPERIMENT IN INDIA

Empirical evidence has shown that returns to English language ability are substantial in India. Research has also focused on the impact of private tutoring in the context of developing economies to find evidence that remedial teaching leads to better student achievement and higher test scores. In this paper I analyze whether private tutoring helps in developing English language ability. Simple OLS estimates suggest statistically significant effects but estimated coefficients are rather small at 0.2 percentage points. Presence of confounders and selection bias may potentially understate the true effects of private tutoring on English language ability. To address this issue, I exploit a unique policy experiment in India in a regression discontinuity framework to identify cohorts eligible for private tutoring and compare their outcomes to the ineligible. I use this potentially exogenous policy variation as an instrument for private tutoring and find significant increases in English language ability estimated at 16 percentage points which is much larger than the simple OLS effects. Since standard academic curriculum is not directed towards improving foreign language ability, private tutoring as an input in the education production function seems to offer high marginal returns. From a policy perspective, this implies that private tutoring should be encouraged for enhancing English ability even though there are concerns that this provides disincentives for teachers to teach in school.     

Attitudes to Ethnic Minorities, Ethnic Context and Location Decisions

Attitudes of ethnic majority populations towards other communities is a potentially important determinant of social exclusion and welfare of ethnic minorities. The suggestion that negative attitudes towards minorities may be affected by the ethnic composition of the locality in which individuals live has often been made and empirically investigated. We point to a potential for bias in simple estimates of ethnic context effects if individual location decisions are driven partly by attitudinal factors. We also suggest an instrumental variables procedure for overcoming such bias in data with appropriate spatial information. Our results suggest that such a correction may be important.     

文化翻译视角下《京华烟云》中的中国英语

当今世界,英语这门国际化语言出现了全球化和地方化的特点。带有明显东方特点的中国英语（China English）应运而生。中国英语（China English）是指带有中国文化蕴涵和文字特色的语言、文化、事物、思想意识等的词汇。中国英语在表达中国特有事物方面起到了很大的作用,传播了中国独特的文化。林语堂先生用英文创作的著名小说《京华烟云》中的中国英语就是中国文化传播的典范。由于中西文化的差异,中国特有的文化现象无法用地道的英语表达出来,因此林语堂先生在书中创造使用了大量的中国英语来阐释中国传统文化诸如婚丧礼宴,冲喜守寡,中医中药,古玩字画,赋诗作对,道家文化,饮食文化等等。纵观本小说,林语堂先生创造的中国英语主要体现在生态文化、语言文化、物质文化和社会文化等各个方面,中国英语的使用是本部小说的成功之处,有着重要的文化意义,这让更多的西方人了解了中国文化,有利于中西文化的渗透和融合。