The Effects of Language Characteristics on the Wages of Hispanic-American Males

Abstract

This paper reports an investigation of the extent to which the language handicap of Hispanic Americans explains their low economic status. Wage equations which include language attributes among the explanatory variables are estimated for a sample of Hispanic and non-Hispanic white males drawn from the 1976 Survey of Income and Education. It is found that language attributes have a significant effect on wages and that they explain an important proportion of the mean wage differential between non-Hispanics and Hispanics.