Language-Skill Investments and Migration Decisions
Final Report Abstract
This project analyzed language skill investments and migration decisions and how these interact. Whichever the motive for migration, language skills affect the feasibility and costs of migration and integration prospects in the host country. Empirical research in the area of language and migration is, however, constrained by the scarcity of high-quality micro-data on language learning before potential migration. For that reason, previous studies have focused on existing language skills and used survey and census data. However, the distinction between existing language skills and the investment into language skills, i.e. language learning, is relevant to researchers and policy makers. To overcome this problem, we conducted surveys among participants of language courses offered by the Goethe-Institute (GI), a major provider of German language courses around the world, and among university students. Overall, the new rich datasets comprise data from over 10,000 individuals in 14 different countries including Japan, Korea, India, Indonesia and Mexico beside countries in Europe. Based on these new datasets (WP 1), we addressed a number of research questions (WP 2): (1) We analyzed the motives of language learning, which can be broadly categorized into investment motive and consumption motive. Our results show that the group of language learners is heterogeneous within and between countries concerning their motives. In addition, there are possible spillovers from the consumption motive to a professional use of German in the (foreign) labor market. These spillovers are particularly relevant for younger women with a native German partner who might be considered “tied-movers”. (2) Our rich datasets also allow studying how migration aspirations and intentions are determined. In particular, we highlight two groups, which have been largely neglected by the literature: those who do not aspire to migrate permanently yet intend to do so, and those with intentions to migrate only temporarily. Our results suggest that having a non-native partner can lead to intentions to migrate permanently despite aspirations. Temporary migration is linked primarily to educational and career reasons while family ties mostly explain permanent migration, where gender differences show up. (3) We also examined students’ perceptions on the international applicability of their education and how this is correlated to migration aspirations and intentions and time spent studying. We first showed that law students in all countries perceive their education to be less internationally applicable than students in other fields. We then showed that students who perceive their education to be more internationally applicable are more likely to have migration aspirations and intentions, and also spend more time in their studies. (4) We also asked respondents three questions testing their cognitive abilities in logical thinking. We found that although the average score of female respondents was lower than the average score of male respondents, women with migration aspirations or intentions had consistently higher average cognitive ability scores than women without migration aspirations or intentions. For men, the estimated relationship between cognitive ability scores and migration aspirations and intentions is usually statistically insignificant. This gender difference could reflect high-ability women perceiving migration as a way to escape gender discrimination in their home country. For men, self-selection patterns depend on relative returns to human capital at home and abroad. (5) The timing of both our initial student survey in 2019 and the follow-up survey in December 2020 and January 2021 allowed us to examine whether the COVID-19 pandemic has changed risk or time preferences. We found that self-assessed willingness to take risks decreased while the willingness to take risks in an incentivized lottery task increased, for the same group of respondents. Our findings cast doubt on the idea that the pandemic would have a uniform effect on risk preferences in either way. As for time preferences, none of the changes is statistically significant.
Publications
- (2021): Language Learning: Human Capital Investment or Consumption?, Jena Economic Research Papers JERP 2021-19, Jena
Huber, Matthias and Silke Uebelmesser
- On the Stability of Risk Preferences: Measurement Matters. Economics Letters, article 110172
Adema, Joop, Till Nikolka, Panu Poutvaara and Uwe Sunde
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2021.110172)
