Which policies matter? Explaining naturalisation rates using disaggregated policy data

Abstract

Despite similar experiences of immigration, the proportion of immigrants taking up the citizenship of their country of residence varies substantially in Western European countries. While previous research concluded that citizenship policies in general are relevant for explaining these differences, this paper provides a fine-grained analysis of which policy dimensions bear greater or lesser importance for naturalisation outcomes. Drawing on citizenship policy data from nine EU countries for the period 1995 to 2014 and using time-series cross-section regression models, the study identifies economic requirements, ius soli, and dual citizenship provisions as main drivers for differences in naturalisation rates.

Naturalisation in context: how nationality laws and procedures shape immigrants’ interest and ability to acquire nationality in six European countries

“…In addition to origin country characteristics, destination country characteristics are emerging as some of-if not the most-significant determinants of nationality acquisition. Building on American studies of policy changes (Jones-Correa 2001;Bloemraad 2006b;Haney-Lopez 2006;van Hook et al 2006;Logan et al 2012;Fox and Bloemraad, 2015), comparative research in Europe has contributed the most to the study of the links between acquisition rates and nationality policies, usually measured in terms of the legal requirements (Janoski 2010;Reichel 2011;Gonzalez-Ferrer and Morales 2013;Vink et al 2013;Beine et al 2016;Stadlmair 2017;Hansen and Clemens 2018).…”

Earning citizenship. Economic criteria for naturalisation in nine EU countries

“…In citizenship regimes that do not offer birthplace citizenship to their resident alien populations, economic criteria may substantively limit the inclusiveness of democracies. How such economic criteria affect the lives of immigrant populations and their inclusion in consolidated democracies should be subject to further research: There are some plausible indications that economic criteria influence naturalisation outcomes (Reichel and Perchinig 2015;Stadlmair 2017b) and there is a growing literature on the positive effects of naturalisation on labour market participation and socio-cultural integration (Ersanilli and Koopmans 2010;OECD 2011). How naturalisation matters in a context where access to citizenship is conditional upon economic status and which differences in life chances this entails, remains a task for further research, for which this study can provide a basis.…”

Social Integration of Immigrants and the Attitude of the Native Population in European Countries

“…The same complications with applicability of general statistical methods are basically valid for any ordinal-scale indicator, including the MIPEX index and its categories that were also used in this study. However, the practical use of such ordinal indexes is so widely used among academic researchers that there are many published academic articles in related fields that use this index, without even mentioning the issue (Aleksynska and Agan, 2010;Huddleston, Niessen, Ni Chaoimh and White, 2011;Stadlmair, 2017b). Moreover, the very little within-country variation in the index during the observed 5-year period (Table 3) also supports the use of this index as an aggregated indicator of the stringency of naturalization policies.…”