The shell is the shell: why learning Catalan pays off

BarcelonaIt was because of microeconometrics, which he wanted to study at Pompeu Fabra University, that Antonio Di Paolo (Pescara, 1981) ended up in Barcelona in 2004. In Bologna, he had passively learned Spanish from exchange students who didn't speak Italian, and it was clear to him that the same wouldn't happen to him with Catalan. He did everything possible to learn it quickly: he enrolled in courses taught in Catalan and threw himself into "practice" until he could answer exams in Catalan. Then came the classes he taught as a predoctoral researcher at the Autonomous University and, therefore, total immersion in Catalan.

Soon his personal experience and his professional interests ended up colliding, because he decided to investigate whether mastering Catalan really has an impact on the labor market, specifically for immigrants and their children, who are the ones who don't speak Catalan. position from home. His first scientific study, published in 2012 in Journal of Applied Economics, revealed that knowing how to speak and write Catalan increases the salary performance of this population by 18%. And there were two associated factors: "The impact is greater among people with higher education and those who were born abroad," says the professor.

The next question was: in which sector does Catalan generate more returns, the public or the private sector? Given that the language is a requirement for most public positions in the country (except for those in the state administration, among others), it is evident that mastering the language radically determines the probability of becoming a public employee. The study, published in Spanish Public Treasury It showed that "once you enter the public sector, the difference between those who know Catalan and those who don't is zero, basically because everyone has advanced skills, while in the private sector, the existence of a positive return is confirmed," says Di Paolo, who estimates it at between 5% and 13% extra earnings per month.

Indeed, it can be scientifically stated that Catalan is linked to the economic lift, especially for newcomers, as Di Paolo will explain this Saturday at the seminar. Semicircles organized by the Platform for Language.

The effect of language policies

"Human capital is a matter of supply and demand," explains the economics professor. "What is the return on knowing English in Denmark? Practically zero, because everyone knows English, it doesn't mean a plus because there is a lot of supply. If there were a lot of demand and little supply, the few people who would have English would achieve very high results." For Di Paolo, the key that has structured and transformed this demand and supply in Catalonia is the Catalan administration since the Transition: "The existence of language policies in Catalonia, as in other multilingual realities, generates the institutional framework." That is to say, beyond the market, public policies are what have contributed to creating the incentives and rewards for knowing the language of the country. of those students? A study published in Economics Education Review In 2018, a study shows that "each additional year of study generates an economic return in terms of income; for each year of study after the introduction of Catalan in school, the salary increase is 7.9% compared to 6.5% with monolingual education." In other words, those who studied in Catalan schools have an additional 1.4 percentage points of return on their salaries. Bilingual schools "generate benefits and increase incentives to study more because, obviously, if the market pays more for studies, families have more reasons to invest in education," says the professor.

School and identity, linked?

But the study also draws another conclusion: "Those who benefited most from the introduction of Catalan in schools are first- or second-generation immigrants from the rest of Spain, who had Spanish as their first language. This means that the introduction of Catalan into the education system leveled the playing field in a bilingual labor market," says Di. It is paradoxical, then, that Spanish-speaking families are the ones who have legally imposed the 25% of Spanish in the classroom.

"Learning in Catalan is not a problem. Too much politics is made about the language when more policies should be made for the language, and schools should be left alone," the economist concludes. "Because in a hypothetical decline in Catalan in schools, it is very likely that the children of non-Catalan-speaking families would lose the most." His most recent study, prepared by the Barcelona School of Economics This 2025, analyzes the relationship between language in school and identity variables, and determines that having studied in a school where they teach in Catalan does not have a considerable effect on the students' sense of identity: "The Catalan school has not indoctrinated young people to feel more Catalan, to have secessionist preferences or to be more in favor of the independence of Catalonia.

For Di Paolo, in the current context the great challenge is "to make visible and increase the perception of the economic and social benefit among the newly arrived population", on the one hand, by improving and disseminating resources for immigrants to learn the language and, on the other, asking "a considerable effort from Catalan people" Catalan; this means, for example, "not switching to Spanish at the first attempt". The economist sees a great margin for action, especially in the workplace, where Spanish predominates, as can be seen from the study prepared by UGT In 2024, Di Paolo asserts, "We need to explain that Catalan brings many benefits, socially, in terms of integration, and also cognitively. It also opens many doors for you emotionally, and it's not that difficult, especially for those of us who come from Romance languages. Learning Catalan is truly worth it."