Accelerating the passage to citizenship: marriage and naturalization in France

McAvay, Haley ORCID: 0000-0001-8315-1821 and Waldinger, Roger (2021) Accelerating the passage to citizenship: marriage and naturalization in France. Frontiers in Sociology, 6. ISSN 2297-7775

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Abstract

Naturalization systems often provide immigrant spouses of citizens with accelerated access to citizenship, but thus far, the impact of such fast-track procedures has yet to be examined by empirical analysis. Toward that end, we leverage a unique feature of French naturalization policy: a dual track system, one for standard naturalization and a second that makes naturalization a right for non-citizens married to citizens. We show that, overall, family-level factors exercise the greatest influence on naturalization decisions relative to individual and contextual factors; further, marriage to French citizens is the single most powerful factor, yielding effects on naturalization in both tracks. However, while marriage to a naturalized citizen promotes standard naturalization, marriage to a French native fosters citizenship via the marriage track. Women migrants who marry French natives are particularly likely to naturalize via marriage. Contributing to the study of naturalization by attending to the link between two institutions—naturalization and marriage—we show that the effects of an apparent bias toward the familial ties of citizens run up against state efforts to close off membership to outsiders.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2021 The Author(s)
Divisions:	LSE
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration
Date Deposited:	23 Oct 2025 16:21
Last Modified:	24 Oct 2025 14:24
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/129961

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