The effect of first language and education on literacy, employment and income: An analysis from the Adult Literacy and Life Skills survey

4. Education and skills

This section examines the education and skills of New Zealanders with English as an additional language.

4.1: Distribution of education and skills

The ALL survey shows that New Zealanders with English as an additional language were likely to have lower levels of English-based literacy and numeracy than New Zealanders with English as a first language. In both prose literacy and numeracy, almost 75 percent of people aged 25 to 65 with English as an additional language had scores below the overall mean score for the New Zealand population.

Figure 4: Distribution of literacy and numeracy by first language for people aged 25 to 65

Note: Refer to the skill scores section in Appendix A for discussion about the standard deviations scale.

New Zealanders with English as an additional language were more likely to hold a degree or postgraduate qualification than New Zealanders with English as a first language. This reflects the recent emphasis in immigration policy on giving preference to people with tertiary qualifications.

Figure 5: Distribution of highest qualification by first language for people aged 25 to 65

Just over half of people with English as an additional language had all of their education outside of New Zealand. This proportion was fairly constant across educational levels. The proportion with a mixture of New Zealand and overseas education varied by level, with those with tertiary qualifications being less likely to have all of their education in New Zealand.

Figure 6: Distribution of country of education by highest qualification for people with English as an additional language aged 25 to 65

The differences in literacy and numeracy scores by first language are evident across qualifications. The differences were largest for those with degrees and no educational qualifications and smallest for those with postgraduate and tertiary non-degree qualifications.

Figure 7: Average prose literacy and numeracy by qualification level and first language for people aged 25 to 65

Note: Refer to the skill scores section in Appendix A for discussion about the standard deviations scale.

4.2: Effect of language on skill measures

Differences in the distributions of qualifications are one of several factors that affect the average literacy and numeracy scores of people with and without English as a first language. Other differences include age and gender profiles of the populations and family backgrounds.

A way of better establishing the ‘true impact’ of having English as an additional language on English-based numeracy and literacy skills is to use a regression model that controls for these other factors. The results of this model show that the effect of having English as an additional language on English-based literacy and numeracy varied by both level and country of education.

For people with English as an additional language, having some or all of their education in New Zealand reduced the differences in their score compared with people with English as a first language. The effect of education in New Zealand was greater for prose literacy than for numeracy. For prose literacy, having some New Zealand education improved scores and having only New Zealand education improved scores further. In the case of numeracy, there was no difference between having some or all education in New Zealand.

Figure 8: Standardised effect of country of education on literacy and numeracy for people with English as an additional language aged 25 to 65

Note: Refer to the skill scores section in Appendix A for discussion about the standard deviations scale.

The differences in literacy and numeracy between people with and without English as a first language varied across educational qualification levels. The differences were greatest for people with no tertiary qualifications and also for people with degrees.

Figure 9: Standardised effect of having English as an additional language on ALL scores for people aged 25 to 65

Note: Results are from regression models using prose literacy and numeracy as the outcomes. Population is all people aged 25 to 65. The explanatory variables are language, gender, age, highest qualification, overseas education and parents’ qualifications and employment. The reference group is females aged 40 with some New Zealand education, both parents having secondary school or higher qualifications and not unemployed. Refer to the skill scores section in Appendix A for discussion about the standard deviations scale.

It is reasonable to expect that English language literacy and numeracy may vary according to which language people learnt first. Those who grew up speaking a language closely related to English may have better results than those who speak a first language that is quite unrelated.

The ALL survey shows that the English-based literacy and numeracy skills of people with English as an additional language did vary by the region of the first language. People with a European language as their first language had English-based literacy skills similar to those who have English as a first language. People with non-European languages had much lower literacy skills in English. The pattern is slightly different for numeracy skills. The gap in numeracy for people with East and South East Asian languages as their first language was much narrower than for prose literacy.

Figure 10: Standardised effect of region of first language on literacy and numeracy for people aged 25 to 65

Note: Results are from regression models using prose literacy and numeracy as the outcomes. Population is all people aged 25 to 65. The explanatory variables are language, highest qualification and parents’ qualifications and employment. The reference group is females with parents having secondary school or higher qualifications and not unemployed. Refer to skill scores section in Appendix A for discussion about the standard deviations scale.