Language Proficiency among Post-1990 Immigrants in Israel

Abstract

This paper focuses on the process of linguistic assimilation among post-1990 immigrants arriving in Israel under the Law of Return. We analyse levels of Hebrew proficiency among four immigrant groups (Ethiopia, Former Soviet Union [FSU], Middle Eastern and North African countries [MENA]) and countries in Europe and America [EUAM]) and by language of origin (Amharic, Russian, Spanish, English and French). The analysis is based on a data-set collected by the Central Bureau of Statistics: the post-1990 Immigrant Survey. Controlling for all relevant factors, the data reveal substantial differences across origin groups: immigrants of MENA and EUAM countries have higher probabilities of reporting the highest level of command of the language than their FSU and Ethiopian counterparts. Speakers of Spanish and French attain higher levels of Hebrew proficiency than speakers of Russian, English and Amharic. Apparently, the very existence of a large and residentially concentrated ethnic or linguistic community (as is the case for Ethiopian and FSU immigrants) becomes a potential disincentive for improving their Hebrew skills. The fact that English is a lingua franca understood and prized in Israel explains the slow process of English speakers' language acquisition. The findings are discussed in light of existing theories of linguistic assimilation.

Keywords:

• Language
• Israel
• Assimilation
• Immigrants

Funding

This work was supported by the Israeli Science Foundation [grant number 406/12].

Notes

[1] Paradoxically, since 1983, Israel—a country of mass immigration—has not included in any systematic way questions on Hebrew proficiency in its population censuses and labour force and income surveys, which are the main sources of publicly available data.

[2] Espinosa and Massey (1997, 42) suggest that the effect of labour market position might also indicate that those who display some language ability upon arrival are more able to obtain better jobs or are more likely to be employed in the first place (see also Beenstock 1996).

[3] In addition, the linguistic literature points out that due to maturational constraints—which are the product of biologically based neurological processes—immigrants arriving at older ages have greater difficulty than younger counterparts in learning a new language, even when controlling for other relevant factors (Stevens 1992; Espenshade and Fu 1997).

[4] Research in Germany has shown that immigrants with very good ability in writing the home country language were more likely to be fluent in German, whereas those who were classified as illiterate in the home country language were less likely to be fluent in German (see Dustmann [1994] and Isphording and Otten [2011]).

[5] Most available data-sets for the study of language proficiency do not provide information on pre-migration language learning (Chiswick and Miller 2014), so it is hard to examine the competing claims regarding pre- and post-migration exposure (Beiser and Hou 2000).

[6] For examples of research conducted in European countries, see, e.g. Van Tubergen and Wierenga (2011) for Belgium, Van Tubergen and Kalmijn (2009) for the Netherlands and Hochman and Davidov (2014) for Germany.

[7] Immigrants arriving from the Asian republics of the FSU are included in FSU; Ethiopians are a separate category.

[8] Since 1993, we should also add to these numbers a stable flow of non-Jewish labour migrants and of African asylum seekers (arriving since the mid-2000s). Overall, both documented and undocumented labour migrants and asylum seekers comprise about 3% of the total population of Israel. Because official statistics do not include these populations in data collection, we cannot compare their linguistic outcomes with those of immigrants arriving under the Law of Return.

[9] An ulpan (plural ulpanim) is an institute or school for the intensive study of Hebrew. Ulpan is a Hebrew word meaning studio or teaching, instruction.

[10] The Immigrant Survey provides information for immigrants aged 27 and older. For this reason, we restricted our analysis to this age range.

[11] We determined the level of Hebrew proficiency from respondents’ answers to three questions that were combined to construct an index: ‘How would you evaluate your ability to (i) conduct a conversation, (ii) read, and (iii) write in Hebrew before arrival?’ Answers were on a 5-point scale from 1 = not at all to 5 = very fluent.

[12] Because data for EUAM and MENA countries were provided only in major categories, we could not distinguish specific countries of origin. Nevertheless, we believe that these two major categories are rather homogeneous and capture two distinct ethnic groups.

[13] Unfortunately, the file does not provide information on ethnicity of the spouse. But given the relatively older age on arrival, we can assume that most spouses are co-ethnic.

[14] The index measuring general language proficiency clustered around specific points; therefore, we constructed the following ordinal variable: 1–1.5 = 1; 1.5–2 = 2; 2.1–2.7 = 3; 2.8–3.7 = 4; 3.8–5 = 5).

[15] Apparently, the lack of a significant gender effect is due to the similarity of post-1990 immigrant men and women of different ethnic groups along human capital characteristics, rates of labour force participation and experiences of integration in Israel (see Remennick 2004).

[16] These findings are similar to those of Chiswick and Miller (1998).

[17] Baseline profile: married men, age at migration = 41.6; years of education = 12.5, tenure in the country = 13.2; PTM occupations, level of self-identification as Israeli = 3; perceived discrimination = 1.2; has Israeli friends, ulpan attendance = 5–6 months; language proficiency before arrival = 1.3.

[18] According to Amit and Bar-Lev (2014) a third of Jewish immigrants to Israel from France are also of MENA origin and the rest are second-generation immigrants from MENA.

[19] It is already well known that language proficiency may not be an important determinant of employment during the initial phases of immigrants’ incorporation into the host society; however, over time, low proficiency may become an obstacle to socio-economic mobility (Raijman and Semyonov 1998; Beiser and Hou 2000). Nevertheless, for transnational and multi-local migrants whose economic activities are strongly connected to specific linguistic communities or located in their countries of origin, the ability to command the local language becomes less relevant as compared to their counterparts who are active in the labour market in the country of destination. It is suggested that at least 20% of the North American immigrants and nearly half of French immigrants (arriving to Israel in the last 10 years) are multi-local. It is also argued that the number of FSU immigrants spending some time in Israel and in their countries of origin is on the increase (Pupko 2007).

Additional information

Funding

Funding: This work was supported by the Israeli Science Foundation [grant number 406/12].