English Skills, Labour Market Status and Earnings of Turkish Women

Di Paolo, Antonio and Tansel, Aysit (2019): English Skills, Labour Market Status and Earnings of Turkish Women. Forthcoming in: Empirica No. special issue of 2019

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the effect of the level of English skills on the labour market outcomes of Turkish women, using data from the Adult Education Survey of 2007. By adopting a bivariate equation framework, we jointly model the effect of English skills on labour market status and, conditional on being a wage earner, on monthly earnings and occupational status. The multinomial equation that explains labour market status allows for a different effect of language knowledge on the probability of being employed, unemployed but actively looking for a job, an unpaid family worker or involved in household tasks. The results indicate that being proficient in English is conditionally associated with a higher probability of being employed as a wage earner and, to a lesser extent, unemployed but looking for a job, whereas it decreases the likelihood of being involved in household tasks. Moreover, there is a significant conditional correlation between having a high level of skills in English and earnings, which is only modestly reduced when job-related variables and (especially) occupation dummies are included as additional controls. Indeed, being proficient in English barely affects occupational status when selection into employment status is controlled for. Therefore, the knowledge of foreign languages (in this case English) seems to stimulate labour market participation and earnings capacity, but does not substantially affect the occupational position of women in the Turkish labour market.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: English skills, females, labour market status, earnings, English skills, females, labour market status, earnings, occupation
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender ; Non-labor Discrimination; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J24 - Human Capital ; Skills ; Occupational Choice ; Labor Productivity; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs > J31 - Wage Level and Structure ; Wage Differentials; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O15 - Human Resources ; Human Development ; Income Distribution ; Migration; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z13 - Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology ; Social and Economic Stratification

References

Adesope O. O., Lavin T., Thompson, T. & Ungerleider C. (2010). A systematic review and meta-analysis of the cognitive correlates of bilingualism. Review of Educational Research, 80 (2): 207–245.

Aldashev, A., Gernandt, J., & Thomsen, S. L. (2009). Language usage, participation, employment and earnings: Evidence for foreigners in West Germany with multiple sources of selection. Labour Economics, 16(3): 330-341.

Angrist, J. D., & Pischke, J. S. (2008). Mostly harmless econometrics: An empiricist's companion. Princeton university press. Princeton, New Jersey (USA).

Azam, M., Chin, A., & Prakash, N., (2013). The returns to English-language skills in India. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 61(2): 335-367.

Bialystok, E., Craik, F.I., Green, D.W., & Gollan, T.H. (2009). Bilingual minds. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 10(3): 89–129.

Bleakley, H., & Chin, A. (2004). Language skills and earnings: Evidence from childhood immigrants. Review of Economics and statistics, 86(2): 481-496.

Bleakley, H., & Chin, A. (2010). Age at arrival, English proficiency, and social assimilation among US immigrants. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2(1): 165-92.

Casale, D., Posel, D., (2011). English language proficiency and earnings in a developing country: The case of South Africa. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 40(4): 385-393.

Chang, S. K. (2011). Simulation estimation of two‐tiered dynamic panel Tobit models with an application to the labor supply of married women. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 26(5): 854-871.

Chiswick, B. R., & Miller, P. W. (2007). The economics of language: International analyses. Routledge.

Chiswick, B. R., & Miller, P. W. (2014). International migration and the economics of language. Handbook of the Economics of Immigration, pp. 211-269.

Costa, A. & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2014). How does the bilingual experience sculpt the brain? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 15(5): 336-345.

Di Paolo, A., & Raymond, J. L., (2012). Language knowledge and earnings in Catalonia. Journal of Applied Economics, 15(1): 89-118.

Di Paolo, A. and A. Tansel (2015). Returns to Foreign Language Skills in a developing Country: The Case of Turkey. Journal of Development Studies, 51(4): 407-421.

Donado, A. (2017). Foreign Languages and their Impact on Unemployment. LABOUR, 31(3): 265-287.

Dustmann, C., & Van Soest, A. (2004). An analysis of speaking fluency of immigrants using ordered response models with classification errors. Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 22(3): 312-321.

Egger, P. H., & Lassmann, A. (2012). The language effect in international trade: A meta-analysis. Economics Letters, 116(2): 221-224.

European Union, (2012). Europeans and their languages, Special Euro-Barometer 243/Wave 64.3 (http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_386_en.pdf).

Fabo, B., Beblavý, M., & Lenaerts, K. (2017). The importance of foreign language skills in the labour markets of Central and Eastern Europe: assessment based on data from online job portals. Empirica, 44(3): 487-508.

Fidrmuc, J., (2011). The economics of multilingualism in the EU, in: Eger, T., Schäfer H-B. (Eds.), Research Handbook on the Economics of European Union Law. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 331-352.

Frankel, J., and A. Rose (2002). An estimate of the effect of currencies on trade and income. Quarterly Journal of Economics 117: 437-466.

Ganzeboom, H. B., De Graaf, P. M., & Treiman, D. J. (1992). A standard international socio-economic index of occupational status. Social Science Research. 21(1): 1-56.

Ginsburgh, V. A., & Prieto-Rodriguez, J., (2011). Returns to foreign languages of native workers in the EU. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 64(3): 599-617.

Ginsburgh, V., & Prieto‐Rodriguez, J. (2013). Is there a gender bias in the use of foreign languages in Europe? Kyklos, 66(4): 552-566.

Huber, M., & Mellace, G. (2014). Testing exclusion restrictions and additive separability in sample selection models. Empirical Economics, 47(1): 75-92.

Isphording, I. (2015). Language and labor market success. International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd Edition, 2015, pp. 260-265.

Martins, M. F. O. (2001). Parametric and semiparametric estimation of sample selection models: an empirical application to the female labour force in Portugal. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 16(1): 23-39.

Melitz, J. (2008), Language and Foreign Trade. European Economic Review, 52(4): 667-699.

OECD (2018), OECD Labour Force Statistics 2017, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/oecd_lfs-2017-en http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=STLABOUR#

Rendon, S., (2007). The Catalan premium: Language and employment in Catalonia. Journal of Population Economics, 20(3): 669-686.

Roodman, D. (2018). CMP: Stata module to implement conditional (recursive) mixed process estimator. Available at: https://econpapers.repec.org/software/bocbocode/s456882.htm

Saiz, A., & Zoido, E. (2005). Listening to what the world says: Bilingualism and earnings in the United States. Review of Economics and Statistics, 87(3): 523-538.

Seargeant, P. and E. Erling (2011) “The Discourse of English as a Language for International Development: Policy Assumptions and Practical Challenge,” in Coleman, H. (ed.) Dreams and Realities: Developing Countries and the English Language. British Council, London, (pp. 255-274).

Stöhr, T. (2015). The returns to occupational foreign language use: Evidence from Germany. Labour Economics, 32: 86-98.

Tansel, A. (1994). Wage Employment, Earnings and Returns to Schooling for Men and Women in Turkey. Economics of Education Review, 13 (4): 305-320.

Tansel, A. (2001). “Self-Employment, Wage-Employment, and Returns to Schooling by Gender in Turkey,” in Labor and Human Capital in the Middle East: Studies of Markets and Household Behavior, ed. by Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, Ithaca Press, 2001, Reading, UK. pp.637-667.

Tansel, A. (2010). Changing Returns to Education for Men and Women in a Developing Country: Turkey, 1994 and 2005. Paper presented at the ESPE conference, June 18-21, 2008, in London, ECOMOD conference, July 2-4, 2008 in Berlin, MEEA conference, March 20-23, 2009 in Nice, France and ICE-TEA conference, September 1-3, 2010 in Girne, Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Toomet, O. (2011). Learn English, Not the local language! Ethnic Russians in the Baltic States. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 101(3): 526-531.

TURKSTAT (2018) Turkish Labor Force Statistics, www.tuik.gov.tr

UNDP (United Nations Development Program) (2016) Human Development Report.

Wang, H., Smyth, R., & Cheng, Z. (2017). The economic returns to proficiency in English in China. China Economic Review, 43: 91-104.

Williams, D., (2011). The economic returns to multiple language usage in Western Europe. International Journal of Manpower, 32(4): 372-393.

Yao, Y., & van Ours, J. C. (2018). Daily dialect-speaking and wages among native Dutch speakers. Empirica (on-line first, DOI 0.1007/s10663-018-9420-z).