2007 Reports

No Entiendo: The Effects of Bilingualism on Hispanic Earnings

Cortina, Jerónimo; de la Garza, Rodolfo; Pinto, Pablo M.

This paper examines the economic consequences of bilingualism. Specifically, we explore whether the ability to effectively communicate in English and Spanish is rewarded in labor markets. Using a sample of the Hispanic population drawn from U.S. census data for the year 2000 we find that controlling for education, gender, age, place of birth, sector and region of employment, bilingualism has a substantively small positive relation with higher income. However, our results also show that bilingualism is negatively correlated with wage-based income among different occupational categories and sectors, but particularly among managers and those employed in the public sector.