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Gilles Grenier

University of Ottawa, Canada

I want to thank IZA World of Labor for giving me the opportunity to present my views on an issue about which I have been thinking for a long time and whose importance is going to increase in policy discussions worldwide. Along with the other IZA World of Labor contributions, I hope that this article will be useful to policymakers

IZA World of Labor role

Author

Current position

Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa, Canada

Research interest

Labor economics, human capital, immigration, language, demographic changes

Website

https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/members/879/profile

Positions/functions as a policy advisor

Consultant for the Ministry of Immigration, Diversity and Integration of Quebec, 2014

Qualifications

PhD Economics, Princeton University, 1982

Selected publications

  • “Quebec’s language policy and economic globalization.” Language Problems and Language Planning 43:2 (2019): 179–197.

  • “Human capital quality and the immigrant wage gap.” IZA Journal of Migration 3:14 (2014) (with S. Coulombe and S. Nadeau).

  • “How can language be linked to economics: A survey of two strands of research.” Language Problems and Language Planning 1:3 (2013): 203–226 (with W. Zhang).

  • “Canadian immigrants’ access to a first job in their intended occupation.” Journal of International Migration and Integration 12:3 (2011): 275–303 (with L. Xue).

  • “The changing labour market position of Canadian immigrants.” Canadian Journal of Economics 28:4b (1995): 987−1005 (with D. E. Bloom and M. Gunderson).

article(s)

  • The value of language skills Updated

    A common language facilitates communication and economic efficiency, but linguistic diversity has economic and cultural value too

    Gilles GrenierWeiguo Zhang, March 2021
    In today's globalized world, people are increasingly mobile and often need to communicate across different languages. Learning a new language is an investment in human capital. Migrants must learn the language of their destination country, but even non-migrants must often learn other languages if their work involves communicating with foreigners. Economic studies have shown that fluency in a dominant language is important to economic success and increases economic efficiency. However, maintaining linguistic diversity also has value since language is also an expression of people's culture.
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