Parents’ Willingness to Pay for Bilingualism: Evidence From Spain

We analyse parental school preferences in two contiguous provinces of northern Spain, which offer very different school choices since only one of them is bilingual. Basque- Spanish bilingualism affects the school system, labour market, and, consequently, family budgets in the Basque Country. In Cant...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Vega Bayo, Ainhoa, Mariel Chladkova, Petr
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universidad del País Vasco
Repositorio:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
OAI Identifier:oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/64403
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10810/64403
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:school choice
family budget
discrete choice experiment
bilingualism
Descripción
Sumario:We analyse parental school preferences in two contiguous provinces of northern Spain, which offer very different school choices since only one of them is bilingual. Basque- Spanish bilingualism affects the school system, labour market, and, consequently, family budgets in the Basque Country. In Cantabria, Spanish is the only official language, and English is the second language typically offered in the school system. Using two discrete choice experiments applied to school choice, we estimate parents’ willingness to pay for different school characteristics in the two areas. We find that the most highly valued school characteristic in both areas is the language of instruction, but in the Basque Country, where the minority language indirectly has a wage premium in the local labour market, its importance relative to other characteristics is more salient.