Effects English-Language Skills-Children of Immigrants

影响移民子女的英语语言技能

• 批准号: 7012465
• 负责人: AIMEE CHIN
• 金额: $ 7.43万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-07-01 至 2008-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7012465
• 关键词: United States; academic achievement; behavioral /social science research tag; child psychology; children; clinical research; developmental psychology; family structure /dynamics; fertility; human data; human population study; immigrant; language development; marriage /marital status; nonEnglish language; parent offspring interaction; psychometrics; socioeconomics; socioenvironment; verbal learning; vocabulary

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): There are 13.5 million children of immigrants in the U.S., which accounts for nearly one-fifth of our nation's children and a disproportionate share of our nation's children in poverty. These children are at greater risk to drop out of high school and therefore realize worse economic outcomes. The schooling gap between the children of immigrants and native Whites appears to be linked to English proficiency. Unfortunately, since language human capital is endogenous, simple correlations of English proficiency and socioeconomic outcomes are unlikely to measure the causal effect of English proficiency. We take advantage of the psychobiological phenomenon that younger children learn languages more easily than older children to construct an instrumental variable for language human capital. We use instrumental-variables estimation to examine two main research questions. First, what is the effect of parents' English-language skills on children's language and educational outcomes? Second, to better understand the family environment in which the children of immigrants are growing up, what is the effect of English-language skills on the marriage, childbearing and location decisions of immigrants? We employ micro-data from the 2000 Census. Preliminary analysis reveals a powerful association between age at arrival and the English proficiency of individuals who immigrated during childhood. Regarding the first question, we find that immigrant parents' English proficiency has a positive effect on U.S.-born children's English proficiency while the children are still young. Also, children with parents with lower English proficiency are more likely to drop out of high school and not attend preschool. Regarding the second question, we find that higher English proficiency has no impact on the probability of ever marrying but raises the probability of divorce. Also, it does not change the probability of having at least one child but raises the number of children. The significance of the proposed research is that it will increase our understanding of the role of English in immigrant assimilation in the U.S. Knowledge gained will help us design policies that improve the conditions under which the children of immigrants grow up and that raise their well-being in adulthood. Psychobiological constraints on how humans acquire new languages may be preventing some immigrants from developing adequate English skills. Interventions can prevent the parents' disadvantages from being transmitted to the children.

描述（由申请人提供）：美国有 1350 万移民儿童，占我国儿童的近五分之一，并且在我国贫困儿童中所占比例过高。这些孩子高中辍学的风险更大，因此经济成果更差。移民子女和本土白人子女之间的教育差距似乎与英语水平有关。不幸的是，由于语言人力资本是内生的，英语熟练程度和社会经济结果的简单相关性不太可能衡量英语熟练程度的因果效应。我们利用年龄较小的孩子比年龄较大的孩子更容易学习语言的心理生物学现象来构建语言人力资本的工具变量。我们使用工具变量估计来研究两个主要研究问题。首先，父母的英语语言技能对孩子的语言和教育成果有何影响？其次，为了更好地了解移民子女成长的家庭环境，英语技能对移民的结婚、生育和居住地决策有何影响？我们使用 2000 年人口普查的微观数据。初步分析显示，童年时期移民的人的抵达年龄与英语水平之间存在密切关联。关于第一个问题，我们发现移民父母的英语水平对美国出生的孩子在孩子小的时候的英语水平有积极的影响。此外，父母英语水平较低的孩子更有可能从高中辍学而不上学前班。关于第二个问题，我们发现较高的英语水平对结婚的概率没有影响，但会增加离婚的概率。此外，它不会改变至少生育一个孩子的概率，但会增加孩子的数量。这项研究的意义在于，它将增加我们对英语在美国移民同化中的作用的理解。获得的知识将帮助我们设计改善移民子女成长条件并提高他们福祉的政策成年后。人类习得新语言的心理生物学限制可能会阻碍一些移民发展足够的英语技能。干预可以防止父母的缺点传染给孩子。