The Effects of Foreign Language Ability on Employment

In an increasingly globalized world, communication is key; and thus, a highly marketable skill. The average American is notoriously monolingual in comparison to our European counterparts. Therefore, there should be ample reward in the market for those who go through the effort of learning adittional languages. This paper aims to use econometric analysis to study the possibility, and the extent, that knowledge of foreign languages in the United States affects employment rates. Using data from the Logitudinal Study of American Youth and a sample size of 2,453 individuals, regression analysis shows that foreign language ability has no statistically significant effect on employment, once other measures of human capital are accounted for