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Title: What Holds Back the Second Generation? The Intergenerational Transmission of Language Human Capital Among Immigrants

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2004

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Abstract: Research on the effect of parental human capital on childrens human capital is complicated by the endogeneity of parental human capital. This study exploits the phenomenon that younger children learn languages more easily than older children to construct an instrumental variable for language human capital. Thus, among U.S.-born children with childhood immigrant parents, those whose parents arrived to the U.S. as younger children tend to have more exposure to English at home. We find a significant positive effect of parents English-speaking proficiency on childrens English-speaking proficiency while the children are young, but eventually all children attain the highest level of English-speaking proficiency as measured by the Census. We find evidence that children with parents with lower English-speaking proficiency are more likely to drop out of high school, be below their age-appropriate grade, and not attend preschool. Strikingly, parental English-language skills can account for 60% of the difference in dropout rate between non-Hispanic whites and U.S.-born Hispanic children of immigrants. (JEL J13, J24, J62)

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Authors: Bleakley H, A.Chin

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Family and Marriage, Migration and Immigration

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