The Language Ability of U.S. Immigrants: Assimilation and Cohort Effects 1

Abstract

This article uses data from the 1980 and 1990 U.S. Censuses of Population to examine the English language skills of natives and immigrants. It finds that lack of fluency in spoken English is rare among native-born Americans, including among the teenage and adult children of recently arrived ethnic groups. The vast majority of immigrants also speak English well. However, since the 1950s fluency among new immigrants has declined by 0.3 percentage point per year, because of the shift in source countries from English speaking countries and from continental Europe to Latin America and East Asia. Each additional year of U.S. residence increases the probability of fluency by 1.1 percentage points for immigrants from non-English speaking countries. An additional year of schooling increases fluency by 5 percentage points. Overall, women are slightly more likely to be fluent than men. The large differences in English skills by region of origin seem to be more associated with geographic distance from the U.S. than with the source country's per capita income or linguistic distance from English.