Destination‐Language Proficiency in Cross‐National Perspective: A Study of Immigrant Groups in Nine Western Countries

Abstract

Immigrants’ destination‐language proficiency has been typically studied from a microperspective in a single country. In this article, the authors examine the role of macrofactors in a cross‐national perspective. They argue that three groups of macrolevel factors are important: the country immigrants settle in (“destination” effect), the sending nation (“origin” effect), and the combination between origin and destination (“setting” or “community” effect). The authors propose a design that simultaneously observes multiple origin groups in multiple destinations. They present substantive hypotheses about language proficiency and use them to develop a series of macrolevel indicators. The authors collected and standardized 19 existing immigrant surveys for nine Western countries. Using multilevel techniques, their analyses show that origins, destinations, and settings play a significant role in immigrants’ language proficiency.