Language Skills and Immigrant Success

Mumma, Kirsten Slungaard; Mumma, Kirsten Slungaard

In this study, we leverage the lottery-based admissions policy of a publicly-funded English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program in Framingham, MA to estimate the impact of access to ESOL services on high school equivalency (HSE) credential attainment and civic engagement for adult immigrants. Our study includes ~4,000 first-time lottery applicants who submitted applications to this program between 2008 and 2015. We find that ESOL classes have a modest, positive impact on voter participation but no impact on HSE credential attainment. Our results provide suggestive evidence that access to adult ESOL courses increases civic participation by both re-engaging prior voters and motivating individuals to vote for the first time, perhaps by helping immigrants pass their citizenship test.

While headline-catching immigration debates emphasize the costs immigration imposes on native workers and public services, there is little evidence on the impact of programs that aim to help adult immigrants succeed and contribute to society once they arrive in the United States. A large theoretical and non-experimental research indicates the importance of host country language skills for immigrant integration and economic success (Gordon 1964; Chiswick 1978; Borjas 1989; Chisman 1989; Dustmann 1996; Comings, Son, & Uvin 2000; Dustmann & Fabbri 2003; Jarvis 2004; Bleakley & Chin 2004; Miranda & Zhu 2013; Chiswick & Miller 2015; Lleras-Muney & Shertzer 2015). In the United States, there are over 43 million immigrants, nearly half (48.9%) of whom speak English less than “very well.” (ACS 2017). In 2016, 593,000 non-native English speakers participated in federally support ESOL classes operated by adult education programs in every state in the nation (United States Department of Education [US DOE], 2017). Demand for ESOL services regularly exceeds supply; in Massachusetts, roughly 11,000 individuals attended adult ESOL classes and 17,000 more remained on the waitlist in 2017.

This study provides the first lottery-based causal evidence on how participation in adult ESOL classes, independent of job training, impacts the lives of immigrants. In addition, this study contributes to the limited body of causal evidence on the effect of host country language skills on immigrant success (e.g. Bleakley & Chin 2004; Lleras-Muney & Shertzer 2015). Taken together, our results suggest that public investments in English language instruction services may increase civic engagement in communities with large non-English speaking populations.

Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel Paper: Language Skills and Immigrant Success