Choosing to be a Citizen: The Time-Path of Citizenship in Australia 1

Abstract

This article uses census data to examine the process of becoming a citizen in Australia, and examines differences in the process among major immigrant groups. Some immigrant groups, Mediterranean and Third World immigrants, have a much more rapid transition to citizenship than others. Northwestern Europeans begin more slowly, but catch up several decades later. Anglophone immigrants are altogether less likely to become citizens. The analysis further reveals that people who migrate as children and thus are educated in Australia decide to become citizens more quickly than adulthood immigrants. Indeed, some of them become citizens as children (if their parents did so then). Other measures of affiliation to Australia have ambiguous effects. Social class is unrelated to the decision to become a citizen.