Written French Proficiency by First Generation Immigrants: a Productive Performance Analysis by Stochastic Frontier

This paper aims to identify factors explaining the level of proficiency in written French by immigrants in working age, knowing that few research has been conducted in France on this issue. The originality of this paper is the stochastic production frontier model to explain the scores in written French and the productive performance of immigrants (considered as producers of their own skills). The main results show that mother tongue, age at immigration, social life and mother's diploma are elements which influence the effectiveness of this production. They play a crucial role in the ability of immigrants to use effectively their duration of stay in France and their length of education, considered as the main production factors for new corners to produce skills in the host country's language.