How to make more money? Grow up bilingual, researchers say
Children who grow up speaking both English and another language at home are likely to earn thousands more than those who only speak English, according to a new study.
These individuals who weren鈥檛 able to retain a language other than English spoken at home make about $2,000 to $5,000 less every year than those who know both languages, , issued by the Education Testing Service and the University of California Los Angeles.
The benefits of bilingualism start long before a person enters the job market. Kids who are similarly proficient in both English and a second language 鈥� called 鈥渂alanced bilinguals鈥� 鈥� are also more likely to graduate from high school, go to college, and hold better jobs, .
Oftentimes, these students come from immigrant backgrounds, said UCLA鈥檚 Civil Rights Project, the department that worked on the project.聽
And thanks to their language abilities, these children often also have 鈥渨ider social networks offering more resources and support,鈥� according to the report. 鈥淸Thus] we argue that the urgency to divest immigrant youth of their parents鈥� native language, often intimated in public debates, may cause more harm than benefit in the long run.鈥�
鈥淭his view of bilingualism is from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century,鈥� writes The New York Times. 鈥淩esearchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child鈥檚 academic and intellectual development.鈥�
No longer. Since then, several studies comparing bilingual and monolingual individuals have found that 鈥渢he bilingual experience improves the brain鈥檚 so-called executive function 鈥� a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems, and performing various other mentally demanding tasks,鈥� reports the Times.
Immigrant parents who worry about their children acclimating often grapple with the decision to teach their kids their native language. 鈥淚鈥檓 asked about this all the time,鈥� said Ellen Bialystok, the cognitive neuroscientist who spent almost 40 years researching what鈥檚 now called in an interview with the newspaper.
鈥淚 always say, 鈥榊ou鈥檙e sitting on a potential gift,鈥欌�� she said.
