Language Skills and Earnings: Evidence from a Pre-Industrial Economy in the Bolivian Amazon

Autor/inn/en	Godoy, Ricardo; Reyes-Garcia, Victoria; Seyfried, Craig; Huanca, Tomas; Leonard, William R.; McDade, Thomas; Tanner, Susan; Vadez, Vincent
Titel	Language Skills and Earnings: Evidence from a Pre-Industrial Economy in the Bolivian Amazon
Quelle	In: Economics of Education Review, 26 (2007) 3, S.349-360 (12 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0272-7757
DOI	10.1016/j.econedurev.2005.12.001
Schlagwörter	Writing Skills; Language Skills; Language Minorities; Developing Nations; Official Languages; Monolingualism; Bilingualism; Language Proficiency; Second Languages; Human Capital; Indigenous Populations; Mathematics Skills; Spanish; American Indian Languages; Income + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Writing skill; Schreibfertigkeit; Language skill; Sprachkompetenz; Sprachminderheit; Developing country; Developing countries; Entwicklungsland; Office language; Amtssprache; Bilingualismus; Language skills; Second language; Zweitsprache; Humankapital; Sinti und Roma; Mathmatics achievement; Mathematics ability; Mathematische Kompetenz; Spanisch; Einkommen
Abstract	Among linguistic minorities of industrial nations proficiency speaking the dominant national language increases earnings and wages, but do similar results apply to autarkic linguistic minorities of developing nations? We contribute to studies of the returns to language skills by applying the human-capital approach to a society of hunters, gatherers, and farmers in the Bolivian Amazon (Tsimane'). We use a panel consisting of five consecutive quarters to: (a) estimate the returns to language skills while controlling for schooling, math and writing skills, and other confounders and (b) explore the paths through which language skills might affect earnings. Fluent speakers of Spanish and the local language earned 36.9-46.9% more than monolingual speakers of the local language. Moderate fluency in Spanish bore no strong association with earnings. Spanish-Tsimane' bilingualism bore a positive association with earnings partly because bilingualism bore a positive association with credit access, use of modern production technologies, and labor productivity. (Author).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10