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The bilingual advantage: it's how you measure it

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2025

Ainoa Aparicio Fenoll Open the ORCID record for Ainoa Aparicio Fenoll [Opens in a new window]  and
Zoë Kuehn Open the ORCID record for Zoë Kuehn [Opens in a new window]
Ainoa Aparicio Fenoll
Affiliation:
University of Turin & Collegio Carlo Alberto, Corso Unione Sovietica, 218bis, 10134 Torino, Italy
Zoë Kuehn*
Affiliation:
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Departamento de Análisis Económico: Teoría Económica e Historia Económica, Campus de Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain
*
Corresponding author: Zoë Kuehn; Email: zoe.kuehn@uam.es
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Abstract

We use data on Latino children in the United States who have been randomly assigned calculation tests in English or Spanish to check for the so-called bilingual advantage, the notion that knowing more than one language improves individuals’ other cognitive skills. After controlling for different characteristics of children and their parents, as well as children's time in the US, we find a bilingual advantage among children who read or write in English and Spanish but not for those who only speak or understand both languages. In particular, bilingual readers or writers perform one-fourth to one-third of a standard deviation better than monolingual children, equal to learning gains of an additional school year. Applying the Oster test, we find that selection on unobservables would need to be 3–4 times stronger than selection on observables to explain away our results. The bilingual advantage is stronger among children in two-parent households with siblings and for those at the upper end of the ability distribution.

Keywords

bilingualismcognitive skillsmeasurementselection on observables and unobservables

JEL classification

I2: Education and Research Institutions I24: Education and Inequality J15: Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants • Non-labor Discrimination

Information

Type
Research Paper
Information
Journal of Demographic Economics , Volume 91 , Issue 4 , December 2025 , pp. 663 - 682
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press in association with Université catholique de Louvain

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