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Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers >
Graduate School of Economics and Business / Faculty of Economics and Business >
Peer-reviewed Journal Articles, etc >
From engineer to taxi driver? Language proficiency and the occupational skills of immigrants
| Title: | From engineer to taxi driver? Language proficiency and the occupational skills of immigrants |
| Authors: | Imai, Susumu Browse this author →KAKEN DB | | Stacey, Derek Browse this author | | Warman, Casey Browse this author |
| Issue Date: | 27-Aug-2019 |
| Publisher: | John Wiley & Sons |
| Journal Title: | Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique |
| Volume: | 52 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Start Page: | 914 |
| End Page: | 953 |
| Publisher DOI: | 10.1111/caje.12396 |
| Abstract: | We examine the ability of immigrants to transfer the occupational human capital they acquired prior to immigration. We first augment a model of occupational choice to study the implications of language proficiency on the cross-border transferability of occupational human capital. We then explore the empirical predictions using information about the skill requirements from O*NET and a unique dataset that includes both the last source country occupation and the first four years of occupations in Canada. We supplement the analysis using Census estimates for the same cohort with source country occupational skill requirements predicted using detailed human capital related information such as field of study. We find that male immigrants to Canada were employed in source country occupations that typically require high levels of cognitive skills, but rely less intently on manual skills. Following immigration, they find initial employment in occupations that require the opposite. Consistent with the hypothesized asymmetric role of language in the transferability of previously acquired cognitive and manual skills, these discrepancies are larger among immigrants with limited language fluency. |
| Type: | article (author version) |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2115/82563 |
| Appears in Collections: | 経済学院・経済学研究院 (Graduate School of Economics and Business / Faculty of Economics and Business) > 雑誌発表論文等 (Peer-reviewed Journal Articles, etc)
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Submitter: 今井 晋
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