Social Science Research
Volume 40, Issue 5, 2011, Pages 1362-1370

At the intersection of self and other: English language ability and immigrant labor market outcomes (Article)

Akresh I.R.* , Frank R.
  • a Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, MC-454, 605 East Springfield, 57 CAB, Champaign, IL 61820, United States
  • b Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University, 238 Townshend Hall, Columbus, OH 43210, United States

Abstract

New Immigrant Survey 2003 data are used to consider the intersection between self- and other's assessments of English proficiency. Our findings yield two important results. First, individuals who over- or under-estimate their English proficiency experience worse labor market outcomes than those whose positive self-evaluations coincide with the interviewer's. Second, our analysis of respondents with a concordant self and interviewer assessment suggests higher returns to English proficiency than when using self-assessment. We argue that, although self-assessed language proficiency dominates the literature on immigrants' well-being, this measure omits an important additional factor concerning immigrant self-perception and its concordance with the perceptions of others. © 2010 Elsevier Inc.

Author Keywords

Immigration English ability

Index Keywords

[No Keywords available]

Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-79960899644&doi=10.1016%2fj.ssresearch.2010.05.007&partnerID=40&md5=724144d49aee9e2754617ab2655cc300

DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2010.05.007
ISSN: 0049089X
Cited by: 13
Original Language: English