Language education and economic outcomes in a bilingual society

Poor economic performance of subordinate (typically, minority) groups and large disparities between these groups and the dominant ethnic group are major concerns in most countries. In many of these countries, the mother tongue of the dominant group serves as the common language in national business and intergroup communications. Determining the appropriate emphasis on teaching a local ethnic language relative to the common language is a crucial issue in the education of students from subordinate groups.

This paper develops a model to examine the issue theoretically. The analysis shows that balanced education of the two languages is valuable for skill development. By contrast, with respect to consumption, earnings net of educational expenditure, and their between-group inequalities, the analysis reveals that balanced bilingual education is desirable only when the country has favorable educational and technological conditions (i.e., when sectoral productivities and the effectiveness of education are reasonably high) and only for those with adequate wealth. Language education focused solely on the common language maximizes the economic outcomes of those with little wealth and under adverse conditions, the outcomes for all. The paper discusses the policy implications of these results. It also examines the implications of the asymmetric language positions of the groups for sectoral choices and within-group inequalities.