title: Sources of immigrants' language proficiency: Australian results with comparisons to the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America.
abstract: Recent research on immigrants in the Federal Republic of Germany and the US suggests that their amount of education, the country in which they attained it, and their labor force experience both before and after migrating all have important effects on their skills in the language of the host country.  This paper explores those influences on the English language proficiency of 4 groups of immigrants to Australia:  1) those from Northwestern Europe, 2) Eastern Europe, 3) the Mediterranean basin, and 4) the Third World.  The data are drawn from the 1% public use sample of the 1981 Australian census.  The models are flexible ordinary least squares specifications that permit a variety of curvilinear na interaction effects.  The results generally parallel those for the Federal Republic of Germany and the US.  1 important difference from the US is that the harmful effect of foreign labor experience is greater than the beneficial effect of labor force experience in the host country.
mesh_terms: D000569:Americas; D001315:Australia; D003142:Communication; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003710:Demography; D019049:Developed Countries; D004467:Economics; D004522:Educational Status; D004641:Emigration and Immigration; D004651:Employment; D005060:Europe; D005860:Germany, West; D007802:Language; D009656:North America; D010139:Pacific Islands; D011153:Population; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012106:Research; D012923:Social Class; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014171:Transients and Migrants; D014481:United States
keywords: Americas; Australia; Communication; Comparative Studies; Cross-cultural Comparisons; Demographic Factors; Developed Countries; Economic Factors; Educational Status; Employment Status; Europe; Germany, Federal Republic Of; International Migration; Language; Migrants--men; Migration; North America; Northern America; Oceania; Origin; Population; Population Dynamics; Research Methodology; Socioeconomic Factors; Socioeconomic Status; Studies; United States; Western Europe