From immigrants to (non-)citizens: political economy of naturalisations in Latvia

Abstract

We study the determinants of the willingness to acquire citizenship of Latvia by 'non-citizens' -the former Soviet migrants and their descendants born on the territory of Latvia. The country of Latvia serves as an instructive laboratory for the analysis of naturalisations: due to the centrally planned nature of its 1945-1991 immigration flows, we can exclude the possibility that migrants came with an intention to acquire host country citizenship. Using data from a 2007 survey of 624 former and current 'non-citizens', we find that the elderly, males, single, and those with poor knowledge of the State language are less willing to naturalise. Prospective emigrants are more likely to have naturalised recently in preparation for partaking in the wider EU labour market -a right that citizenship of EU member Latvia conveys. Instrumental variable analysis suggests that low level of education is an obstacle for acquiring citizenship, while higher unemployment rate and lower share of non-citizens at a respondent's place of residence contributes to early naturalisations. JEL codes: F22, J15, J61

Acquisition of permanent residence by temporary foreign workers in Canada: a panel study of labour market outcomes before and after the status transition

“…In addition, it is possible that immigrants who naturalize will invest heavily in human capital specific to the host country that will in turn lead to earnings growth. Similar results are found in other European and North American studies (DeVoretz and Pivnenko 2005;Fougère and Safi 2009;Zhou and Lee 2013;Ivļevs and King 2012;Steinhardt 2012). In contrast, Bratsberg and Raaum (2011) find no positive impact-and even a negative impact-of citizenship on the labour market outcomes of immigrants in Norway.…”

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

“…Moreover, social capital reshapes the incentives for nationality acquisition. For immigrants with spouses or children, nationality acquisition is less of an individual choice than a collective choice to extend the benefits of nationality at negligible additional costs (Portes and Curtis 1987;Ivlevs and King 2012;Street 2014;Peters et al 2016). Increasingly, origin country characteristics are also included in multivariate analysis in order to reveal the significant range of relative benefits and costs for immigrants with different return migration prospects, based on their origin country's level of development, geographical distance, refugee flows and origin nationality policies (Portes and Curtis, 1987;Yang 1994;Jones-Correa 2001;Bueker 2005;Constant et al 2007;Mazzolari 2009;Logan et al 2012;Vink et al 2013).…”

“…These studies focus on a variety of anomalous cases, where immigrant groups have high expected returns on nationality acquisition, but low acquisition rates in practice. Acquisition rates have been lower-than-expected in the United States among Mexicans (Portes and Curtis 1987), in Germany after the 1999 Nationality law reform (Constant et al 2007;Kahanec and Serkan Tosun 2009;Hochman 2011), in Latvia among the Russophone minority (Ivlevs and King 2012) and in France among immigrants with Muslim and disadvantaged backgrounds (Carrillo 2015). The factors predicting interest are fewer and rarely the same as for actual naturalisation (Portes and Curtis 1987).…”

Reflections on the value of citizenship – explaining naturalisation practices

“…A few studies point to the relationship of naturalisation and emigration, as for instance Ivlevs/King (2012) find that (former) non-citizens in Latvia, who plan to migrate are more likely to have obtained Latvian citizen-ship. Bratsberg and Raaum (2011) show that outmigration of immigrants in Norway is more prevalent among immigrants who do not naturalise.…”