Milli mála - 2023, Page 130

130 Milli mála 15/2/2023
ple courses but have no exposure to the language outside of the class-
room. Social networks might have a larger effect on immigrants’
Icelandic proficiency than the number of courses; immigrants who
were more exposed to the language (longer stay in Iceland, more fre-
quent use of Icelandic) were more satisfied with the Icelandic courses.
As expected, based on Chiswick and Miller’s (2001) model, our re-
sults further reveal a positive link between efficiency factors and
higher proficiency in the receiving country language. A higher level of
education and younger age were positively linked to higher proficiency
in the receiving country language, a result which has also been found
in prior studies in other countries (Asfar et al. 2019; Chiswick and
Miller 2001; Kristen et al. 2015; Van Tubergen and Wierenga 2011).
Our results regarding economic incentives are partially in accordance
with the model developed by Chiswick and Miller (2001). Income
level did not affect immigrants’ self-reported language proficiency,
which is contrary to Chiswick and Miller’s (2001) result that wealth-
ier migrants did report higher proficiency in the language of the re-
ceiving society. This result has two implications. Firstly, language
skills do not necessarily lead to better employment opportunities,
recalling Heinemann’s (2017) description of the link between langu-
age skills and economic integration as a “shaky promise.” Secondly,
migrants today take their decisions to learn or not learn languages on
a global market and, especially for some migrants employed in high-
er income jobs in international companies, learning the local langu-
age might not be perceived as crucial.
While the economic incentive income was not linked to language
proficiency, a longer intended stay in Iceland did positively influence
immigrants’ self-reported language proficiency. This result indicates
that those who intend to settle permanently tend to invest more into
learning the language of the receiving society and is in accordance
with prior quantitative research in Iceland (Ólafsson and Meckl 2013)
as well as international studies (Chiswick and Miller 2001, 394). We
found that female migrants reported higher language skills than
male migrants, as has also been reported in some prior studies
(Ólafsson and Meckl 2013; Van der Slik et al. 2015). One possible
explanation of this result, considering our other findings that a
longer intended length of stay was related to higher skills in the re-
PREDICTORS OF SATISFACTION / DISSATISFACTION WITH ICELANDIC LANGUAGE
COURSE AND ICELANDIC PROFICIENCY AMONG ADULT IMMIGRANTS IN ICELAND
10.33112/millimala.15.2.5