Foreign languages for the labor market: an analysis on the role of compulsory education in Europe

Abstract

It is well known that proficiency in languages is important for the labor outcomes of natives, and the economic literature generally shows positive effects for those able to use multiple languages in the domestic labor market. In this context, compulsory education is likely to play an important role in identifying to what extent additional languages matter for the native workforce. Indeed, institutional education systems are often the main providers of individual skills in a country, including language skills, and compulsory education is reasonably unrelated to individual characteristics affecting choices of language acquisition. However, while some studies on co-official languages and labor in multilingual countries focus on compulsory schooling, it seems that no studies have yet been made on foreign languages and compulsory schooling. As a first step for future analyses on foreign languages and labor in Europe, in this paper I try to analyze whether compulsory education affects the foreign language proficiency of European adult natives. I find that being taught foreign languages during compulsory schooling has a positive effect of between 3 and 5 percent on the probability of knowing them