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Citizenship is a key matter for immigrants and their host countries alike. For the latter, the question is when and under which conditions it is appropriate to grant citizenship to the immigrant population. For the immigrants, however, the question arises as to whether it is worthwhile to fulfill these requirements and apply for citizenship. Since granting citizenship is considered a part of integration policy in most countries, economic literature focuses mainly on the effect of citizenship in closing preexisting socio-economic gaps between immigrants and natives. Studies by Chiswick (1978), Brantsberg et al. (2002), Gathmann and Keller (2014) and many other authors find positive effects on the integration of immigrants on the labour market. Recent literature also focuses on the specific integration policy of granting birthright citizenship - granting children of immigrant descent citizenship at birth in the host country. Avitabile et al. (2015) and Felfe et al. (2016) find positive socio-economic effects of granting birthright citizenship on children and their families.
ACQUISITION OF CITIZENSHIP
Table 1 shows absolute numbers of naturalisations and naturalisation rates in 2014 for the OECD countries. There are substantial differences between the countries. Some of the countries have only a low number of granted citizenships given the size of their foreign population, like Austria, Estonia and the Slovak Republic, with less than 1 percent of the foreign population being granted the citizenship of the host country. Other countries like Hungary, Poland and Sweden grant over 6 percent of their foreign population the citizenship of the host country. Typical immigration countries like the US, Australia and New Zealand have a similar naturalisation rate of three percent.
There are several ways to grant citizenship to foreigners, with an important distinction to be made between granting citizenship to children and granting citizenship to adults. For children we can differentiate between jus sanguinis (right by blood) and jus soli (right by soil). Naturalisation requirements for adults mostly depend on the time spent in the host country and vary quite substantially across countries.
ACQUISITION OF CITIZENSHIP FOR CHILDREN OF MIGRANT DESCENDANTS
All countries in the world have a jus sanguinis provision. This means...