Does Foreign Language = More $$$ in a Job?
By Melissa Edler

Remember being in high school and wondering why you needed to learn how to say, “Excuse me, where is the restroom please?” in Spanish, French or some other foreign language? Many American high school students today continue to question why foreign language skills are useful. The answer may be money, according to a new study by a Kent State economics professor.

Using a survey of western European households, Dr. Donald Williams, associate dean of the College of Business Administration, recently examined whether knowing and using a second language in the workplace had any economic benefits. “I was interested in the topic of whether Spanish should be required in some U.S. states,” says Williams. “If you require people to learn a foreign language, the benefits should outweigh the costs.  One type of benefit is financial.” His findings support the idea that learning a second language may indeed have financial advantages.

The study indicates that use of a second language in the workplace raises a European worker’s earnings by about 5 to 10 percent and in some countries as high as 20 percent, although the exact amount depends on country, occupation and gender. The only country where a second language had no effect on earnings was the United Kingdom.

The language most commonly used as a second language is English. In most countries, the highest usage of a second language occurs in the professional and managerial occupations, typically followed by clerks and lastly blue collar workers. As expected, the use of a second language increases positively with the level of education. Finally, males are more likely than females to use a second language at work except in Ireland, Greece and Portugal.

Why do these differences between countries exist? Two potential explanations include “linguistic distance” between the second language and the primary language and patterns of international trade. “If there is a greater distance between languages, the economic return may be higher because of the difficulty in acquiring the second language,” says Williams.

Another explanation is the idea that in countries where a high proportion of international trade exists, there may be a higher return in learning foreign languages. Williams decided to investigate this second option by looking at two types of measures: overall trade (using exports and imports gross domestic products) and tourism. While no relationship was found between foreign language usage and trade in general, he determined that as tourism increases so does the economic return of knowing a foreign language.

Williams presented his findings recently at the European Association of Labour Economists Annual Conference in Prague and the Young Researchers Workshop on Panel Data Analysis in Luxembourg. While Europeans found his research of great interest, so should U.S. and state policymakers who debate whether foreign language should even be required in American schools.

All I know is I wish I’d paid a lot more attention during my high school French class.