Abstract
Catalyst or Crown: Does Naturalization Promote the Long-Term Social Integration of Immigrants?
Highlights
Integration of immigrant populations is an urgent and fundamental policy challenge in many countries in Europe and the Americas that have experienced dramatic increases in the size and diversity of their immigrant populations in recent decades
The Stock and Yogo (2005) F-test against the null that the instrument had no effect on the treatment is about 94 for the instrumental variable (IV) model and 21 for the fuzzy regression discontinuity (RD) model and much higher than the critical threshold of 10 that we need to exceed in order to avoid the problems associated with a weak instrument
Taken together these results suggest that naturalization earlier, rather than later, is more effective in terms of increasing the long term social integration of immigrants and this effect is strong in the sense that even a few years earlier can make a real difference for social long-term integration
Summary
Integration of immigrant populations is an urgent and fundamental policy challenge in many countries in Europe and the Americas that have experienced dramatic increases in the size and diversity of their immigrant populations in recent decades. In stark contrast to the political rhetoric mobilizing for limiting access to host country citizenship with longer residency periods and stricter naturalization criteria, we find that the positive effects of naturalization are larger for the most marginalized groups and when immigrants naturalize earlier, rather than later, in their residency Taken together, these findings suggest that for Switzerland—and perhaps other countries with restrictive or more restrictive naturalization regimes—marginally lowering the long residency requirements and stringent naturalization criteria might well be quite beneficial to reap the full integration gains from the citizenship policy. When interpreting our results it is important to emphasize that our estimates capture the effects of naturalization only among immigrants who have applied for citizenship Among this sample, which is arguably the most relevant for current policy, we find that naturalization promotes long-term social integration and that these effects are larger for more marginalized immigrants and those who apply earlier. Our study fills an important gap by providing evidence on the effects of naturalization in Switzerland a country where the issue of naturalization is pressing: there is an unusually large immigrant population of about 27% and heated policy debates have seen right wing parties like the Swiss People’s party mobilize against mass naturalization of immigrants
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