Language Deficiency and the Occupational Attainment of Mexican Immigrants

The number of Mexican immigrants that have entered the U.S. has greatly increased over the past decade. The occupational attainment of these immigrants provides insight into how successful they are in the host country and language deficiency has an effect on this occupational attainment. By controlling for language proficiency, human capital characteristics and other variables from the IPUMS database, this project uses probit analysis to predict the probability that an immigrant will be employed in a favorable occupation in the u.s. Results show that language deficiency reduces the probability of attaining a favorable occupation, but having no English language skills decreases the probability by a lesser amount than if the immigrant had any English language skills. This information is important to the analysis of immigration policy and to language training for immigrants in the United States