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Measuring the Wage Costs of Limited English

Issues With Using Interviewer Versus Self-Reports in Determining Latino Wages

Milano-The New School for Management and Urban Policy

Arthur H. Goldsmith

Washington and Lee University, GoldsmithA{at}wlu.edu

William Darity, Jr

Duke University

Scholars have found that poor English proficiency is negatively associated with wages using self-reported measures. However, these estimates may suffer from misclassification bias. Interviewer ratings are likely to more accurately proxy employer assessment of worker language ability. Using self-reported and interviewer ratings from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality, the authors estimate the impact of English proficiency on wages for men (n = 267) and women (n = 178) with Mexican ancestry residing in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Use of interviewer proficiency ratings suggests a larger and more gradational language penalty as fluency falls, and women face a stronger penalty than their male counterparts. Moreover, controlling for worker accent and skin shade does little to alter these effects.

Key Words: wages • English fluency • Latino workers • skin shade • accent • earnings

Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 30, No. 3, 257-279 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0739986308320470


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