ABSTRACT
The development of English language skills is an important part of the economic, social and political adjustment of immigrants in the United States. Immigrants differ systematically in the rate at which they acquire English language skills, and this affects rates of economic success, social integration, and political involvement. It has been shown in a number of studies that English language skills are greater among the better educated, those who migrate while young, those with a longer duration of residence in the United States, those who married after migration, and those who reside outside areas of concentration of immigrants with whom they share a mother tongue (see Chiswick and Miller, 1992, 1995, 1998, 1999). These studies also show that English language skills vary directly with the physical distance of the country of origin from the United States, vary inversely with the expected propensity for return migration, and vary inversely with the linguistic distance between English and the immigrant’s mother tongue. Among women, English proficiency varies inversely with the age and number of their children living at home.
