Does English Ability Still Matter In The Trend Of "Anti-Globalization"?

Since the reform and opening up,influenced by modernization and internationalization,our country had been continuously involved in globalization.In the process of deepening international trade and commerce,our country continues to promote English education and has become the largest EFL country in the world.However,in recent years,with the rise of "anti-globalization" and the restoration of conservatism,globalization has been hit.The growth rate of global trade in goods and services has slowed,and the number of trade protective measures has risen sharply.Meanwhile,our country began to reduce the weight of English education through education reform and college entrance examination reform.Against the backdrop of "anti-globalization",does English skills still have an impact on the employment and salary of college graduates?Can language human capital investment obtain corresponding economic returns?To answer these questions,this paper uses the data from the Chinese College Students Employment Survey and takes CET-4 scores as the proxy variable of English ability to investigate the influence of English ability on the salary of undergraduates under the trend of anti-globalization.The empirical results show that the starting salary of undergraduates increases by 10.1%for every standard deviation increase in the score of CET-4.The wage returns from English proficiency decline over time.The wage returns from English proficiency are highest in joint ventures and foreign-owned enterprises,followed by stateowned enterprises and public institutions,and lowest in private enterprises.In large enterprises,the wage return on English ability is significantly higher than that of small and medium-sized enterprises,and undergraduate students working in megacities have a higher wage return on English ability.The salary returns of English proficiency in all kinds of enterprises and institutions and enterprises of all sizes show a downtrend over time.But in megacities,the salary return of English proficiency shows an uptrend over time.The study also found that in addition to the starting salary,undergraduates’ employment success rate,choice of employment place,guaranteed benefits,and job satisfaction are all affected by their English ability.The better the English ability,the higher the success rate of employment,the more willing to work in megacities,the higher the probability of getting five social insurance and one housing fund,and the higher the job satisfaction.The contributions of this study are as follows:First,this paper overcomes the difficulties in obtaining data,adopts unified and standardized English-level test results to evaluate the English ability of graduates,greatly improves the accuracy of the estimated results,and avoids the wrong classification deviation caused by subjective scoring.Second,based on the traditional Mincer income equation,this paper adds the CEE(college entrance examination)scores and the human capital accumulated during the undergraduate period as control variables.Among them,the CEE score can effectively measure the human capital of individuals before higher education,and the human capital accumulated during the undergraduate period can make up for the vacancy of CEE score as an indicator of undergraduate human capital.The addition of the two control variables avoids the coefficient estimation bias caused by the omission of human capital variables related to English competence.Thirdly,this paper uses representative survey data covering the whole country to conduct an empirical test on the wage returns brought by undergraduates’English ability,which proves that under the trend of anti-globalization,English ability is still an important factor affecting graduates’ salary.The data results obtained are more universal and have strong reference values.Fourthly,this paper confirms that undergraduate English ability has a significant impact on their starting salary,employment success rate,choice of employment place,guaranteed benefits,and job satisfaction,which provides a theoretical basis for the country to carry out English education reform and helps the education departments formulate higher education talent training plans.