Foreign language skills and employment status of European natives: evidence from Germany, Italy and Spain

Michele Gazzola, Daniele Mazzacani

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)
138 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between foreign language skills and the employment status of natives in Germany, Italy and Spain. Using a probit model and data from Eurostat’s Adult Education Survey 2011, this article studies the conditional correlation between knowledge of English and French as foreign languages, and the probability of being employed, comparatively, for men and women. The results reveal that skills in English increase the probability of being employed for men in the three countries, respectively, by 3.4, 4.3 and 5.2%. Knowledge of English increases the probability of being employed for women in Germany and Italy—respectively, by 5.6 and 5.7%—but not in Spain. The results also show that very good skills are associated with a higher probability of being employed than sufficient or good skills. The conditional correlation between knowledge of English and employment status for men is larger in countries where skills in this language are less common among the population, and where the unemployment rate is higher. This is consistent with the fundamental economic concept of scarcity. Estimates for French are not statistically significant.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)713-740
Number of pages28
JournalEmpirica
Volume46
Issue number4
Early online date21 Sept 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished (in print/issue) - 30 Nov 2019

Keywords

  • Employability
  • Employment status
  • European labour market
  • Foreign language skills
  • Germany
  • Human capital
  • Italy
  • Language policy
  • Spain

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