Essays on United States Citizenship by Naturalization

The focus of this thesis is on the process of naturalization, i.e. becoming a citizen of the United States. In the first chapter, I examine the association between completing the highest level of education in the US and naturalization, which is novel to the US citizenship literature. The human capital theory suggests that investments in education may to some extent be country specific and would therefore warrant higher returns. Consistent with the notion of country specific human capital that I introduce, the empirical findings suggest that there is a positive association between higher education acquired in the United States and naturalization. The second chapter considers marriage as one of the pathways to obtaining US citizenship by naturalization. Beginning in 2008, unlike the US Census, the ACS data provide information on marital history and the timing of naturalization. I examine the association between the number of marriages and naturalization, as well as the association between the citizenship status of husbands and wives and naturalization. Although marriage introduces complexity as foreign born individuals who desire to live in the US may be more likely to marry and to seek partners with a pathway to citizenship, this study makes a contribution towards an increased understanding of the citizenship process and provides new insights into the dynamics of marriage as a pathway to citizenship. The third chapter makes two new contributions to this literature. First, I examine the timing of naturalization and find that the probability of naturalization increases fastest during the first decade after satisfying the residency requirement. Thereafter, the probability continues to rise with time but at a slower rate. Second, I improve the methodology used in previous studies of factors associated with naturalization by the date of survey, including the first two chapters of this thesis, by utilizing the new information on date of naturalization. Focusing on the role of education acquired in the US vs in the country of origin, I revisit the models of chapter 1 with a hazard analysis that provides improved estimates with a clearer interpretation.