Language and labour markets in South Africa

Abstract

This report investigates the relationship between language proficiency, formal and informal employment and earnings within the employment types. Using a sample of working age African men in the first wave of the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) to determine whether language proficiency is associated with the probability of finding employment, the study finds that English language proficiency does not have a significant association on the probability, but that African home language proficiency has a significant association with the probability of formal employment. While the study finds that African men who are English proficient are likely to earn more than those who are not, this relationship does not hold when analysis is restricted to the formal and informal labour markets. This is likely because of selection effects, that are not controlled for in this study. The contribution of this research is expanding the understanding of the role language plays in labour markets to include how it may affect the kind of employment that one may find.