Earnings and English language: Asian Indians, Chinese and Japanese men in the United States, 2000

Veena Kulkarni, University of Maryland

This paper explores the relationship between English language ability and earnings in the United States using the five and one percent sample of the 2000 census data for the six major Asian immigrant groups; Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese relative to native born white. The relationship is in the expected direction, greater (English) language ability is associated means higher earnings. The significance of the relationship remains even after controlling for the human capital and assimilation factors. Shorter duration of stay in the United States is not necessarily associated with lower earnings for the foreign born working population once the human capital factors and the personal characteristics have been taken into account.