Social Contacts, Dutch Language Proficiency and Immigrant Economic Performance in the Netherlands

Using longitudinal data on immigrants in the Netherlands for the years 1991, 1994, 1998, 2002, we examined the impacts of social contacts and Dutch language proficiency on adult foreign-born men’s earnings, employment and occupational status. The main conclusions are as follows. On average, social contacts and a good mastery of the Dutch language enhance immigrants’ economic performances. The effects are stronger for immigrants with low-skilltransferability than for immigrants with high-skill-transferability, and are stronger for economic migrants than for non-economic migrants. Contact with Dutch people and Dutch organisations unambiguously enhances all aspects of immigrants’ economic performance, however, we found no evidence for the positive effect of co-ethnic contact on employment status

A Test of the Critical Period Hypothesis for Language Learning

A critical period for language learning is often defined as a sharp decline in learning outcomes with age. This study examines the relevance of the critical period for English-speaking proficiency among immigrants in the USA. It uses microdata from the 2000 US Census, a model of language acquisition and a flexible specification of an estimating equation based on 64 age-at-migration dichotomous variables. Selfreported English-speaking proficiency among immigrants declines more or less monotonically with age at migration, and this relationship is not characterised by any sharp decline or discontinuity that might be considered consistent with a ‘critical’ period. The findings are robust across the various immigrant samples, and between the genders