Ecological context and immigrants’ earnings: English ability as a mediator

Labor economic literature has demonstrated a consistent positive association between immigrants’ earnings and their level of proficiency in the host society’s language. Sociological literature, on the other hand, has explicated that immigrants’ abilities to speak the host society’s language are affected by structural/ecological factors which shape the linguistic environment of immigrants. This study proposes a logical extension of the two literatures by suggesting that structural /ecological factors affect immigrants’ earnings indirectly by affecting their ability to speak the host society’s language. Using individual and aggregate data from the U.S. Census 2000, we found that structural/ecological factors such as group size, segregation, and linguistic heterogeneity affected immigrants’ earnings not only directly but also indirectly via their impacts on immigrants’ English ability. English ability is a key mediator through which structural forces shape individual immigrant’s economic assimilation outcome.