Language Proficiency and Subjective Well-being: Evidence from Immigrants in Australia

Jongkwan Lee; Anthony Niu; Hee Seung Yang

doi:10.1007/s10902-021-00474-2

Language Proficiency and Subjective Well-being: Evidence from Immigrants in Australia

Jongkwan Lee, Anthony Niu, Hee Seung Yang

Department of Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between language proficiency and subjective well-being among the first-generation immigrants in Australia. To address endogeneity-related concerns, we use the age at arrival and country of origin as an instrument for English proficiency. Our results show that greater proficiency in English significantly improves self-reported mental health and life satisfaction. These impacts are pronounced among subgroups of males, highly educated individuals, and older immigrants who have lived in Australia for over 30 years. Our mediation analysis suggests that physical health is one of the most important channels through which immigrants’ destination-language acquisition affects their subjective well-being.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1847-1866
Number of pages	20
Journal	Journal of Happiness Studies
Volume	23
Issue number	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-021-00474-2
State	Published - Jun 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge the insightful comments made by the Co-editor, Stephanie Rossouw, and two anonymous referees. We also thank Andrew Clarke, Youjin Hahn, Asadul Islam, Robin Sickles, and conference and seminar participants at Asian Meeting of the Econometric Society 2018, International Panel Data Conference 2018, Yonsei University, Monash University, and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology for their helpful comments. Hee-Seung Yang acknowledges the financial support from Yonsei University (Yonsei Signature Research Cluster Program (2021-22-0011)).

Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge the insightful comments made by the Co-editor, Stephanie Rossouw, and two anonymous referees. We also thank Andrew Clarke, Youjin Hahn, Asadul Islam, Robin Sickles, and conference and seminar participants at Asian Meeting of the Econometric Society 2018, International Panel Data Conference 2018, Yonsei University, Monash University, and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology for their helpful comments. Hee-Seung Yang acknowledges the financial support from Yonsei University (Yonsei Signature Research Cluster Program (2021-22-0011)).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.

Keywords

Immigrant
Instrumental variable
Language proficiency
Mental health
Physical health
Social capital
Subjective well-being

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1007/s10902-021-00474-2

Cite this

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abstract = "This study examines the relationship between language proficiency and subjective well-being among the first-generation immigrants in Australia. To address endogeneity-related concerns, we use the age at arrival and country of origin as an instrument for English proficiency. Our results show that greater proficiency in English significantly improves self-reported mental health and life satisfaction. These impacts are pronounced among subgroups of males, highly educated individuals, and older immigrants who have lived in Australia for over 30 years. Our mediation analysis suggests that physical health is one of the most important channels through which immigrants{\textquoteright} destination-language acquisition affects their subjective well-being.",

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Language Proficiency and Subjective Well-being: Evidence from Immigrants in Australia

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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