The Wage Penalty of Dialect-Speaking

Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper 16-091/V

28 Pages Posted: 1 Nov 2016

See all articles by Jan van Ours

Jan van Ours

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) - Erasmus School of Economics (ESE)

Yuxin Yao

East China Normal University, Faculty of Economics and Management

Date Written: October 31, 2016

Abstract

Our paper studies the effects of dialect-speaking on job characteristics of Dutch workers, in particular on their hourly wages. The unconditional difference in median hourly wages between standard Dutch speakers and dialect speakers is about 10.6% for males and 6.7% for females. If we take into account differences in personal characteristics and province fixed effects male dialect speakers earn 4.1% less while for females this is 2.8%. Using the geographic distance to Amsterdam as an instrumental variable to dialect-speaking, we find that male workers who speak a dialect earn 11.6% less while for female workers this is 1.6%. Our main conclusion is that for male workers there is a significant wage penalty of dialect-speaking while for female workers there is no significant difference.

Keywords: Dialect-speaking, wage penalty, job characteristics

JEL Classification: J24, I2

Suggested Citation

van Ours, Jan and Yao, Yuxin, The Wage Penalty of Dialect-Speaking (October 31, 2016). Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper 16-091/V, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2861883 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2861883

Jan Van Ours (Contact Author)

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) - Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) ( email )

P.O. Box 1738
3000 DR Rotterdam, NL 3062 PA
Netherlands

Yuxin Yao

East China Normal University, Faculty of Economics and Management ( email )

North Zhongshan Road Campus
3663 N. Zhongshan Rd.
Shanghai, 200062
China

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