EUDO-Citizenship: Why Immigrants in Europe Naturalize: Motivation, Ability, Opportunity

On average, immigrants from less developed countries are 5 times more likely to naturalize than those from highly developed countries. For both immigrant groups a more accessible 24citizenship policy (as measured by MIPEX access) has a positive influence on the probability of acquiring destination country citizenship. When looking at the range of MIPEX scores of the countries in our sample (29 to 79), the propensity to naturalize increases from around 5 to 20 percent for immigrants from highly developed countries, and from around 35 to 70 percent for immigrants from low/medium developed countries...In addition, aside from motivation and ability, the propensity to naturalize of immigrants from less developed countries is also determined by the legal structure of the countries in which they reside: immigrants are twice as likely to naturalize in countries with very open citizenship policies...Read more