Returns To Language Skill:Evidence From Migrants' Income And Health

Language skill has been in the framework of labor economics since for it contains properties as human capital,public goods,culture and institution.This paper tries to explore language skill and its returns to income and and health among migrant workers using the official language of China:Putonghua.Using micro data from"2012 China labor Force Dynamic Survey(CLDS2012)",this paper argues that Putonghua ability has a positive and significant influence on the migrant workers in China,This paper draws the following conclusion:(1)The economic returns of Putonghua ability has a significant positive impact on migrant workers;after using dialect distance as an instrument variable to solve the possible endogenous problems,this impact remains.Other things equal,migrant workers who can speak Putonghua will have their wage income raised about 5,000 yuan,the annual contribution rate of about 20%.(2)The ability of Putonghua to the income effect of immigrants is heterogeneous,and will be more important with the increase in the popularity of Putonghua.(3)The mechanism of Putonghua ability is mainly through human capital effect and the regional differentiation based on the accent,while the signal effect is not obvious.(4)The ability of Putonghua has significant positive effects on the health status of migrant workers,which can significantly improve the health of self-reporting,increase the level of nutritional intake,reduce the incidence of obesity and reduce the probability of smoking.(5)In the mechanism of the possible influence of Putonghua proficiency on health,this paper verifies the existence of "the promotion of social capital quality",and argues that the mechanism of "cognitive enhancement" may not exist in the study of Chinese dialect.