Social Status and Gendered Pathways to Citizenship

Abstract

Despite decades of research on naturalization, the relationship between gender and the decision to naturalize is under-theorized. Given that women's lived experiences of migration are distinctive from those of men, we ask whether and how gender plays into immigrants’ naturalization decisions. We explore gendered migration trajectories by incorporating Michael Piore's concept of social status as an additional rationale for naturalization. To better understand immigrants’ naturalization decisions, our research leverages semi-structured interviews conducted in 2018 with immigrants residing in California to illuminate gendered decision-making processes that underpin naturalization choices. We find that naturalization is conditioned by gender when women's status in the origin country differs from their status in the destination country. Where women's rights are less extensive in origin countries, we find that both genders value citizenship in the destination country but for different reasons. Women respondents who enjoyed enhanced status in the destination country valued citizenship because it secured their ability to remain in the destination country, while retaining their ability to visit friends and care for family in their origin country. By contrast, men respondents who lost status in the destination country planned return to their origin country to regain their societal position but valued the destination-country passport as a status symbol in their origin country and because the passport provided enhanced mobility and economic opportunities in the global economy. Where status differences between the origin and destination countries were minimal, gender was not a significant factor in naturalization decisions. We point to a fruitful extension of the research agenda on naturalization by incorporating a theoretical framework that acknowledges gendered migration and naturalization trajectories.

Introduction

Immigrants value citizenship for a plethora of reasons, including voting rights and protection from deportation (Castles and Davidson 2020). Yet not all immigrants naturalize, even when dual citizenship is possible (Castles and Davidson 2020). Although the research on naturalization choices is well developed (see, e.g., Yang 1994; Jones-Correa 1998; Diehl and Blohm 2003; Pantoja and Gershon 2006, Chiswick and Miller 2008, Fougère and Safi 2009; Reichel and Perchinig 2015; Mossaad et al. 2018; Steiner 2019), it downplays distinctions between men's and women's decision processes (e.g., Vink 2017).¹ Typically, quantitative research on naturalization incorporates sex (male/female) as a control variable, but the empirical results on gendered naturalization rates are not uniform across time and space (e.g., Yang 1994; Fougère and Safi 2009; Hochman 2011; Reichel and Perchinig 2015; Peters, Vink and Schmeets 2016). Moreover, where researchers find a gender difference in naturalization rates, the mechanisms underlying that variation are subject to conjecture (e.g., Yang 1994; Fougère and Safi 2009; Hochman 2011; Reichel and Perchinig 2015; Peters, Vink and Schmeets 2016; although see Pantoja and Gershon 2006 for an exception). In fact, Reichel and Perchinig (2015, 42) argue that “the general influence of gender [on naturalization decisions] definitely need[s] further research.” Thus, we explore how and whether gender plays a role in naturalization decisions.

This limited attention to gender in naturalization research contrasts with scholarship on the gendered dimensions of migration, which has expanded rapidly in the past three decades (e.g., Morokvasic 1984; Pedraza 1991; Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994, 2017; Pessar 1999; Kanaiaupuni 2000; Boyd and Grieco 2003; Curran et al. 2006; Piper 2006; Lutz 2010; Donato, Enriquez and Llewellyn 2017). As this broader literature clearly demonstrates, gender plays a central role in decisions to migrate, in the composition of migrant flows, and in processes of immigrant integration. As Pedraza (1991, 321) summarized, “The experience of immigration also profoundly impacts the public and private lives of women: their labor force participation, their occupational concentration, their religiosity, their marital roles and satisfaction, and their autonomy and self-esteem.” Thus, we anticipate that gender plays a role in naturalization decisions as well.

We build on the well-established utility maximization model that incorporates immigrants’ personal characteristics and the origin-country and destination-country contexts defining the costs and benefits of naturalization (Yang 1994). To this model, we add Michael Piore's (1979) concept of social status — focusing on gender status — to identify potentially gendered explanations of naturalization decisions based on differences in status between origin and destination countries. Change in social status — both positive and negative — as a result of migration to another country represents a potential reason to either settle in the destination country or return to the origin country, thereby affecting the value of naturalization in the destination country and, thus, the naturalization decision.

To explore gender-based rationales for naturalization, in 2018, we interviewed 16 immigrants living in major metropolitan areas in California, selected to ensure variation on gender — male/female — and on women's status in the origin country. We interviewed two men and two women from each of four countries, Iran, Mexico, the Philippines, and Ukraine. Our semi-structured interviews allowed respondents to construct their own immigration narratives, along with their naturalization decisions. Interviews permitted us to probe both the extant explanations for naturalization and how gender-based status in the destination country affects naturalization decisions. We found that gendered responses in our interviews were conditioned by variation between women's status in origin and destination countries. Among women, enhanced status in the United States reinforced their plans to remain in the destination society and to naturalize. By contrast, immigrant men's diminished status in the destination country supported their plans to return to the origin country. For men, however, naturalization remained valuable because a US passport enhanced both their status in their origin country and economic opportunities upon return (Harpaz and Mateos 2019). Where gender-status differences between origin and destination countries were small (in the case of Ukrainian immigrants), gendered rationales for naturalization disappeared. Thus, interviews illuminated the ways in which gender may influence naturalization decisions. To conclude, we propose new hypotheses about gendered naturalization decisions based on differentials in social status and additional insights from our interviews. We also outline a path for both extending and evaluating these hypotheses in future research.

The Gendered Decision to Naturalize

A significant body of research on naturalization provides a strong foundation upon which to construct a gendered analysis of the naturalization decision. Yang (1994) provided a central theoretical account of utility maximization, based on the “perceived costs, benefits and meaning of naturalization” (451). Yang's (1994) framework approximates the costs and benefits of naturalization empirically by the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the immigrants themselves, as well as by structural conditions in the destination and origin countries (Yang 1994; Jones-Correa 2001; Dronkers and Vink 2012; Vink et al. 2018). Additional research on naturalization, using a wider array of data, has emphasized the local context of naturalization (Bloemraad 2002; Diehl and Blohm 2003; Hochman 2011; Cort 2012; Dziadula 2018; Mossaad et al. 2018; Vink et al. 2018; Fouka 2019), thereby exploring in more detail contextual variables in immigrants’ decision-making processes. Furthermore, Street (2013, 2014) underscores that naturalization decisions are often made in the context of the family, rather than by individuals alone.²

The quantitative studies cited above generally incorporate gender as a control variable in the analysis but evaluate variation in men's and women's rates of naturalization rather than the underlying gendered decision-making processes. These analyses find that men's and women's rates of naturalization often vary but that gender differences are generally small and that women do not uniformly naturalize at higher rates than men across time and national context (Yang 1994; Bloemraad 2006; Reichel and Perchinig 2015). Where gendered rates do vary, scholars propose, but are unable to evaluate, the underlying reasons why (e.g., Yang 1994; Reichel and Perchinig 2015). Finally, even the most elaborate models of naturalization explain less than 30 percent of variation in naturalization decisions (Chiswick and Miller 2008). Therefore, we move beyond the focus on naturalization rates to examine the underlying decision making in an effort to determine whether men and women differ in their rationales for naturalization.

We incorporate Michael Piore's (1979) research on the role of status in explaining migration between origin and destination countries into the naturalization- decision-making process. As defined by Weber more than a century ago, social status refers to “a person's position within a hierarchy of social prestige — as a distinctive feature of stratification in all societies” (quoted in Gidron and Hall 2017). “Ascriptive” dimensions of status include factors such as age and sex, while “achieved” dimensions of status usually refer to education and occupation (Hollingshead 2011). Both dimensions are likely to manifest in migration and naturalization decisions. Piore (1979) argued that wealthy democracies reserved the first tier in dual labor markets for the (male) native workforce, who gained protection through collective bargaining and legislation. The second tier of workers, including migrants, satisfied employers’ need for flexibility. Workers from poorer countries, in turn, saw migration as a path to increased earnings that would allow them to enhance their social standing in their origin country. Unattached to the social hierarchy in the destination country, they performed any task, however disdainful. Upon returning to their origin country, Piore argued, they regained status. Other researchers have also documented this phenomenon (e.g., Chiswick 1978, 1980; Jones-Correa 1998).

As Piore's research focused on (Italian) men, he did not sufficiently explore the gendered basis of status. In contrast to Piore's observation that men migrants experienced a decline in status in the destination country, women migrants may actually experience an increase in status in some destination countries, especially where women's rights are more fully protected (Grasmuck and Pessar 1991; Pedraza 1991; Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994; Jones-Correa 1998; İnce-Bego 2019; UNDP 2020). Therefore we employ semi-structured interviews to untangle the implications of status, for both women and men.

To structure the interviews, we drew upon the gender and migration research, which acknowledges that women's experiences are not uniform but subject to a variety of contextual factors (Donato, Enriquez and Llewellyn 2017; Bonjour and Cleton 2021). We focus specifically on gendered preferences for settlement and return in instances where migrants move from countries where women's rights are less protected to countries where women's rights are more fully protected, and nest the naturalization decision in broader migration decision-making processes.

Gender permeates migration processes (Morokvasic 1984; Grasmuck and Pessar 1991; Pedraza 1991;Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994; Jones-Correa 1998; Boyd and Grieco 2003; Ruyssen and Salomone 2018; İnce Beqo 2019). Thus, we locate the naturalization decision in the migratory process which incorporates the initial migration decision, issues of settlement and return, as well as naturalization choices.³ First, previous studies posit that social status is central to women's migration calculus — where women's status is low in the origin country, this becomes a reason to migrate elsewhere (Morokvasic 1984; Boyd and Grieco 2003; Ruyssen and Salomone 2018). However, because gender discrimination can actually hinder migration, perceptions of gender discrimination are only one component driving women's intentions to migrate, rather than generating actually migration (Ruyssen and Salomone 2018). Second, gender affects settlement decisions. Ethnographic research suggests that improved social status is central to women migrants’ desire to settle in the destination country to protect their enhanced status whereas men migrants prefer return as a method of regaining both ascriptive and achieved dimensions of social status (Grasmuck and Pessar 1991; Pedraza 1991; Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994; Jones-Correa 1998; İnce Beqo 2019). However, these observations are thus far unconnected to naturalization research. We therefore extrapolate these observations to the naturalization decision-making process, taking into account that differences in gender status in origin and destination countries vary in the immigrant population.

We also draw on the strategic citizenship literature that explores the logic underlying non-residential access to dual citizenship rather than naturalization through residence (Harpaz and Mateos 2019). While the research on naturalization assumes that the value of citizenship accrues through residence, the strategic citizenship literature suggests that citizenship also has a value outside the destination country. Harpaz and Mateos (2019) describe several purposes of a dual passport: as an insurance policy against political and economic turmoil in the origin country (Harpaz 2013); as a mechanism to enhance economic opportunities in the global economy and international mobility (Mau 2010; Harpaz 2013); as an intergenerational transfer of wealth (Balta and Altan-Olcay 2016); and as a source of identity and cultural capital (Kim 2019; Knott 2019). Although these scholars study non-residential access to dual citizenship rather than naturalization through residence and do not incorporate gender into their analyses, the logics of non-residential citizenship may provide insights into why migrants who plan to return to their origin country might choose to naturalize, as they may benefit from naturalization in ways similar to individuals who gain dual citizenship through ethnic ties but remain in their origin country.

The themes we explore in the semi-structured interviews — perceptions of variation in gender status between the origin and destination countries, preferences regarding settlement and return, and the value of non-residential citizenship — are developed in more detail below. We keep in mind that individuals migrate for complex reasons (Massey et al. 1993), so we also expect a mixture of motives in naturalization decisions.

Women's Naturalization Trajectory

Women's status is almost universally lower than men's by most measures in countries around the globe, but women's status varies dramatically by country (UNDP 2020). Since women, as well as men, migrate in all directions, there is no guarantee that women migrate to a country where women's rights are more fully protected. When they do, however, they are more likely to experience an improvement in status than a decline (Grasmuck and Pessar 1991; Pedraza 1991; Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994; Jones-Correa 1998; İnce Beqo 2019). In those circumstances where women's lived environment provides greater protections and less gender discrimination in the destination country, women's enhanced social position becomes a reason, among others, to remain in the destination country, rather than return to the origin-country environment that provides fewer opportunities and protections.

Ethnographic research on immigrant settlement reinforces this picture. A growing literature, for example, suggests that immigration is more beneficial to women than to men, in the United States, as well as in Europe (Pessar 1984; Kibria 1993; Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994; Menjivar 1999; Duda-Mikulin 2018; İnce Beqo 2019). This outcome is tied, in part, to women's increased ability to work and their increased autonomy in the family as they contribute to household income (Grasmuck and Pessar 1991; Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994). A similar outcome may also arise in the transition from an extended family setting in the origin country to a nuclear family setting in the destination country, where women no longer experience the familial interference of parents and in-laws (İnce Beqo 2019). Moreover, women migrants often report that they are less satisfied with return than are men (Grasmuck and Pessar 1991; de Haas and Fokkema 2010; İnce Beqo 2019; Bonjour and Cleton 2021). For example, Singer and Gilbertson (2003, 369) specifically target gender inequality as one source of this discontent, alluding to “patriarchal structures and gendered socialization.” Given the benefits of settlement and the costs of return, settlement in the destination country may turn in part on the gendered context of migration and differentials in social status between the origin and destination countries.

Regardless of the reasons for migration, recent research suggests that female immigrants acculturate more quickly and more fully than male immigrants on issues of gender equality exactly because migration enhances their status (Roder and Mühlau 2014). When women migrate to countries with higher levels of gender equality, Roder and Mühlau (2014) report, the longer the stay, the more egalitarian their gender ideology becomes. The underlying mechanisms associated with this acculturation process involve both exposure to new concepts of gender equality and the benefits gained by adopting gender-equality concepts in terms of women's public and private lives (Bolzendahl and Myers 2004). In contrast to male immigrants, who often lose status in the destination country, female immigrants experience “the gender egalitarian values of mainstream societies [as] a liberating promise” (Roder and Mühlau 2014, 905), which becomes a reason to settle in the destination country.

Of course, immigrant women's experiences are not uniform. As Hugo (2000) reminded us, migration can empower women, but it can also reinforce the status quo or even disempower women. Where migrant networks are particularly dense, origin-country societal norms might be reproduced, and even reinforced, within an enclave. Moreover, women migrants are particularly vulnerable to structural oppression; their multiple identities spanning race, class, gender, and nationality lend themselves to power imbalances, individually and collectively (Crenshaw 1991). Even as their gender status improves upon settlement, women migrants may continue to experience inequality. Racism, religious discrimination, or xenophobia may reduce their status along other dimensions such that their overall treatment may not reflect the average women's status in the destination country (Bürkner 2012). Nonetheless, it is plausible to assume that, on average, as the difference between women's status in the destination and origin country grows, women will experience a rise in their status, one they are reluctant to abandon in returning to their origin country. Ethnographic evidence provides numerous examples of women who resist their husbands’ desire to return to the origin country permanently and ally with their children to maintain a household in their destination country (Grasmuck and Pessar 1991; Jones-Correa 1998; Singer and Gilbertson 2003; de Haas and Fokkema 2010). Women migrants whose status improves in the destination country are more likely to settle there to retain this status; thus, status provides a potential motivation for naturalization.

Yet gendered plans for settlement and return have rarely been linked to naturalization. One exception is Singer and Gilbertson (2003, 371, 375), who argue that women's greater access to employment and “other networks of support — both informal and state sponsored — facilitate independence and contribute to women's desire to remain [in the destination country].” They conclude that “women were more likely to have naturalized as a way to consolidate settlement” (371; see also Alvarez 1987). Yet individuals who are eligible for naturalization in wealthy western democracies are normally legal permanent residents (Baker 2021). Why might legal residents, particularly women, choose to naturalize? What unique benefits are there to gain?

For women, we posit that naturalization mitigates several threats to their settlement. Women's greater economic precarity, especially in the labor force, represents one type of threat to settlement (Bonjour and Cleton 2021). Women migrants are usually employed in feminized economic sectors that are low paid and insecure, such as the textile industry or the “care” sector (Bonjour and Cleton 2021). Although work may help improve a woman's status in the family, she may remain precarious and dependent on both social networks and state support. Gendered labor roles provide a logic connecting settlement with the naturalization decision, especially where naturalization provides access to a broader array of government-provided resources that even legal residence cannot provide (e.g., NCLS 2014).

Naturalization also mitigates threats to permanent residence, as women may experience distinctive insecurities (Duda-Mikulin 2018). Women are the primary providers of family care (Walby 1989), but migrant women's care responsibilities often span both origin and destination countries (Duda-Mikulin 2018). Depending on the rules, these care responsibilities may threaten permanent residence in the destination country for women. In the United States, for example, stays outside the country of more than 6 months can put “green card” status at risk (USCIS 2013). These concerns may trigger the consolidation of settlement through naturalization.

Thus, we posit that naturalization is a strategy for dealing with threats to settlement in a destination country that are largely unique to women's migration experiences. Further, naturalization guarantees that a woman migrant will not be forced to return to her origin country involuntarily through deportation, a threat that applies to both men and women migrants (JacksonWhite n.d.). The themes generated from these various bodies of research suggest that women, whose status often improves through migration, are likely to consider settling in the destination country; we provide the linkage between the desire to settle and the naturalization decision.

Men's Naturalization Trajectory

Patriarchy is part and parcel of social status (Walby 1989); it is likely that the difference between women's status in the origin and destination countries redounds on men's status as well. Men who emigrate from societies that privilege males may well experience a deeper loss of status when arriving in societies with a more egalitarian gender ethos. Male immigrants usually lose the deference due to their position in the employment hierarchy (Piore 1979). However, this status loss may be compounded when men move to a country with greater gender equality, as their wives and daughters are granted greater privileges in the destination society (Jones-Correa 1998). Even without achieving their economic goals for migration, returning to their origin country may enhance men's standing in society.

Carrying Piore's line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, if men return to the origin country to regain status once their economic goals are met, naturalization would be irrelevant. This picture is consistent with numerous empirical analyses that suggest a long-term or permanent loss of occupational status for most male migrants, labeled as “downward male mobility” (Chiswick 1978, 1980; Jones-Correa 1998). Ethnographic research confirms the desire for many male migrants to return. Singer and Gilbertson (2003) observe that men are less eager to naturalize in the United States because of plans for return. Return, “including its imagining and planning, allows men to reclaim lost privileges linked to gender, race and class” (Gilbertson and Singer 2003, 42; also see Guarnizo 1997). As Singer and Gilbertson (2003, 374) conclude, “[m]en's dissatisfaction with changing gender relations also informs their desire to return.”

Although the ethnographic evidence is consistent with Piore's emphasis on social status as a central component of the immigrant experience, naturalization may still serve an instrumental purpose for immigrants planning to return to their origin country. Similar to the rationale for non-residential second passports, having access to a highly ranked passport sets the male return migrant apart from his peers and enhances his status in his origin country (Plourde 2009).⁴ A “stronger” passport may also be prized for its actual mobility value because it opens doors to business opportunities, which are often cemented in person, as well as travel for pleasure (Mau 2010; Harpaz and Mateos 2019; Kim 2019; Steiner 2019) and occasional reentry to visit family in the destination country. Thus men, even though they desire to return home to improve their status, may also see the benefit of naturalization — to obtain a “stronger” passport (Harpaz 2013; Harpaz and Mateos 2019). Naturalization, for men, is presumed to be less about gaining protections and resources in the destination country and more about the passport's value as a prestige good and the acquired ability to travel and access to expanded economic opportunity.

Overall, we extrapolate and extend the research on social status, gender, and strategic citizenship to illuminate potentially gendered determinants of naturalization decisions. Both quantitative and qualitative research cited above provides evidence of a wide array of reasons for naturalizing. We anticipate that income differentials between origin and destination countries, access to public services, identity, and desire for political participation may all be part of the mix of why individuals naturalize. However, we also anticipate that gender status plays into the naturalization decision.

Identifying Variation in Gender Through Semi-Structured Interviews

We employ semi-structured interviews to explore respondents’ decision-making processes concerning whether and when to naturalize. Our research strategy draws on thematic analysis (Galleta 2013) to suggest possible gendered dimensions of our underlying utility maximization model of naturalization, the central model in the naturalization literature (Yang 1994). The voices of immigrants themselves are critical to understanding whether and how any gendered logics play into naturalization decisions and allow us to generate plausible hypotheses for future research. The presentation of immigrants’ voices, a central contribution of this article, is valuable in crystalizing the links between gender and naturalization decision making for both men and women immigrants. Because the existing literature provides only clues about potential variation in gendered reasons for naturalization, rather than testable hypotheses, we rely at this stage on logical, rather than statistical, inference (Small 2009). The conversations generated by the semi-structured interviews also provided opportunities for additional explanations to emerge from interviewees’ experiences (Galletta 2013).

To hone hypotheses for future research, we limited the geographical variation in the destination country—the United States—to California. California's foreign-born population is 26.7 percent (Johnson and Sanchez 2019), higher than the national average, and provides a broad migrant community. The choice of California also minimized other variation, such as naturalization procedures and variation in women's status in the United States. The United States represents a wealthy democracy that has improved women's status and that provides for permanent immigrant settlement and naturalization (UNDP 2020; Bolter 2022). The hypotheses we seek to generate and, in future research, to evaluate, may be applicable to other wealthy western democracies that also promote women's rights and permit permanent migrant settlement and naturalization. We recognize that there is substantial variation in women's status, even among this select group of wealthy western democracies, but also report that women's status in the United States is better than most countries, thereby representing a likely improvement for many women migrants (the United States is ranked 30 out of 153 on the gender inequality index; see UNDP 2020 for all rankings).

Given the exploratory nature of these interviews and our status-oriented framework, we sought to encompass variation in interlocutors along two key dimensions: gender and gender inequality in origin countries. To capture variation in gender inequality, we employed the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP 2020) Gender Inequality Index (GII). The GII incorporates measures of reproductive health, empowerment, and labor market participation and is indexed between 0 and 1, where higher values reflect higher levels of gender inequality (UNDP 2020). We chose to interview two women and two men from Iran, the Philippines, Mexico, and Ukraine, as immigrants from each of these countries are well represented in the California population (US Census Bureau 2019).⁵ As presented in Table 1, the GII suggests that women's status is lowest in Iran and highest in the United States, with the Philippines, Mexico, and Ukraine arrayed in ascending order. However, we group Iran, the Philippines, and Mexico as having lower status for women than the United States, and Ukraine serves as the country most similar to the United States. Although we make no claim that respondents are a representative sample, their origin countries do span many regions of the globe.

Table 1.

Indicators of Women's Status in Respondents’ Countries, 2019.

	Iran	The Philippines	Mexico	Ukraine	The United States
Gender Inequality Index (GII) rank 2019: 1 = most egalitarian	113	104	71	52	46
GII (low scores indicate greater equality)	0.459	0.430	0.322	0.234	0.204

Source: UNDP (2020).

Neither Ukraine nor the United States is a model of gender equality; the country with the lowest gender inequality in 2019 was Switzerland, with a score of 0.0251 while, at the upper end, Yemen received a score of 0.795 (UNDP 2020). The United States’ score is among the highest within the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a wealthy country intergovernmental organization, and, as reflected in Table 1, is not vastly different from that of Ukraine. We also point out that women's status is not merely a reflection of the level of economic development or democracy. We recognize that both the level of wealth and regime type in the origin country have been linked to naturalization choices (Dronkers and Vink 2012). Yet income and regime type are not identical to gender status. For example, Iran is the most economically developed of the four countries under study, with the highest Human Development Index, yet it has the lowest status of women in the group (see Online Appendix for statistics). Research on the relationship between women's status and democracy reveals similarly contradictory results, with some showing a positive relationship (Richards and Gelleny 2007), no relationship (Bego 2014), or a negative relationship (Paxton 1997).

We interviewed 16 respondents in total, eight men and eight women, four from each country. There were, of course, practical constraints to the number of interviews we were able to conduct. However, we also point out that our thematic analysis reached saturation by the 16th interview — that is, we were not obtaining additional information from new respondents relative to gendered reasons for naturalization at that point. Rather, later respondents reported experiences that resembled the experiences of prior respondents.⁶

Like the individuals interviewed by Alvarez (1987), our interviews used “once and only” contact. We solicited respondents through a flyer distributed to contacts in the research and migrant communities, with an offer of a $50 gift card for participation, as interviews took between 60 and 120 minutes. Requirements included a minimum age of 18, a minimum of four years residence in the United States, legal status, and the ability to communicate verbally in English, as we conducted interviews in English.⁷ We chose immigrants with legal status and longer-term residence, in part, to ensure eligibility for naturalization and to avoid ethical issues associated with vulnerable undocumented populations. The flyer indicated that the interview focused on the choice of naturalization and did not prime respondents to our interest in the role of gender. The study was subject to Institutional Review Board approval, ensuring informed consent and voluntary participation and protecting anonymity. We employ pseudonyms to protect respondents’ identity.

Although we interviewed individuals, there is a good reason to believe that naturalization decisions do not operate in a vacuum and that “social dynamics shape naturalization behavior” (Street 2013, 25). Street (2013) suggests that family relationships may affect naturalization decision and provides evidence from Austria and the United States that an immigrant living in a household with a naturalized member is more likely to naturalize. Nonetheless, immigrants have individual agency as well. Although children may qualify for citizenship when a parent naturalizes, all adults in wealthy western democracies must obtain individual citizenship (UN Division for the Advancement of Women 2003). Moreover, even if families decide to naturalize together, the individual reasons for doing so may be disparate and difficult to understand without interview data. Thus, we recognize that naturalization behavior may include dynamics between the individual and family members, but to understand the naturalization decision, individual responses are necessary. Overall, interviews highlight that naturalization decision making is complex; social dynamics matter, but migrants also retain a considerable degree of autonomy in their naturalization decisions.⁸

The interview questionnaire included three sections (Galletta 2013, chapter 2). The first asked broad questions about personal histories; the second examined elements of the story of immigration; the final section focused on the respondent's understanding of the naturalization decision. Interview questions progressed from general to specific: reasons for departure, reception and settlement in the destination country, and naturalization decision. Detailed questions about experiences in the destination country included views of gender differences between the origin and destination countries, experiences of discrimination, and the family's role in the decision-making process. While the interview did cover migrants’ gendered experiences in both their origin countries and the United States, we believe that the question on gender did not bias participants’ reflections on naturalization decisions, as migrants themselves provided the initial narrative of their immigrant experience that the interviewer only probed in greater detail.⁹

Interviews took place between July and September 2018 with one of the authors, who is, herself, an immigrant, which helped respondents feel heard (Berger 2015). A third party who accompanied the interviewer simultaneously transcribed interviews.¹⁰ Each interview was then analyzed for themes by two authors, the second, who is not an immigrant, providing an outsider perspective. We discussed the interviews’ content and themes that arose, both those that were consistent with the literature on naturalization and those that were novel and originated organically. Discussing these themes led us to touch on these themes more deeply in the interviews that followed (e.g., gendered definitions of “opportunity,” preferences for settlement and return, and the value of the US passport through settlement and return). In Table 2 below, we document respondents’ naturalization decisions by country and gender. The gendered rates of naturalization are consistent with overall naturalization statistics in the United States.

Table 2.

Counts of Naturalization Across Interview Sample.

	Iran	Mexico	The Philippines	Ukraine
Men	1 Naturalized	2 Naturalized	1 Naturalized	2 Naturalized
Men	1 Not naturalized	2 Naturalized	1 Not naturalized	2 Naturalized
Women	1 Naturalized	2 Naturalized	2 Naturalized	1 Naturalized
Women	1 Not naturalized	2 Naturalized	2 Naturalized	1 Planned

Semi-structured interviews captured respondents’ decision-making process regarding naturalization and illuminated those components related to gender. As described below, women from gender-unequal origin countries sought naturalization for settlement purposes, as settlement provided professional opportunities, diminished the likelihood of gender-related violence, and provided legal safeguards based on gender. In sharp contrast, men respondents from gender-unequal countries sought to regain their social status through planned return and sought naturalization, not for settlement, but for the expanded ability to travel and associated economic opportunities generated by the US passport.

Due to space constraints, we emphasize in the next section only the role of gender status. However, we acknowledge that gender status is only one component of the migration, settlement, and naturalization decisions. Moreover, settlement and return preferences are not necessarily binary nor always achieved (Guarnizo 1997). That said, migrants stated preferences for settlement or return and connected those preferences to naturalization decisions. A summary of the 16 interviews is provided in the Supplemental Appendix and illustrates the broader context of naturalization decision making.

Gender Inequality and Women's Naturalization Decisions

Naturalization Choices by Women From Gender-Unequal Origin Countries

We first asked why individuals immigrated and whether and why they chose to remain in the United States or return to their origin country. Interviews permitted us to explore the meaning of opportunity through a gendered lens, as when Maria, a Mexican respondent, shared a gendered tale of migration. She emigrated from Mexico at the age of 22 to “escape family issues and to create a new life.” When asked about differences between Mexico and the United States, she stated,

[I am] more satisfied with [my] life in the United States because satisfaction comes from social equality; people here have the opportunity to work and succeed whereas things are stagnant in Mexico. [Furthermore], I personally believe that men and women leave their country of origin for mostly the same reasons: better opportunity — financial opportunity. However, for women, it brings opportunity for better treatment. For men, it was more financial opportunity. (Maria, Mexico, italics added)

Like other woman in our sample, Maria discussed opportunity through a gendered lens. As reflected in much of the existing literature on migration (e.g., de Haas, Castles and Miller 2020), Maria pointed out that while most immigrants moved for economic reasons, women also gained social status and naturalized to protect their status.

In interviews, women most valued labor market participation and protection from gender-based violence in the destination country. Importantly, although each female participant's immigration narrative differed, they all remained in the United States because they felt that their lives had improved on at least one dimension. For some, an improvement in status meant attaining a career that would otherwise be unattainable, while for others, it meant legal protections against domestic and marital abuse. Thus, while women migrate for a diverse set of reasons (Massey et al. 1993), respondents described how their settlement in the United States and subsequent naturalization had, in some way, altered their position in the destination society, relative to their position in the origin country. Below, we disaggregate each dimension and discuss how gender inequality in the origin country conditioned naturalization decisions.

Labor Market Discrimination

Among respondents, labor market discrimination was central to the link between gender inequality and naturalization decisions. For women, the benefits of labor force participation are not limited to higher wages (Bonjour and Cleton 2021). Work represents financial freedom that provides them with leverage to reshape personal and professional relationships (Guendelman and Perez Itriaga 1987). It also offers professional rewards in terms of career satisfaction and career trajectories (Bonjour and Cleton 2021). In interviews, five out of six women from highly unequal societies (Iran, the Philippines, and Mexico) stated that their origin country discriminated against women in terms of employment opportunities. These women's narratives were strikingly similar; they all observed that both men and women could apply for the same job, but, as Sahar from Iran stated, “mysteriously, only men got certain positions.” Elaborating on this point, she depicted a fine line between legal and cultural differences in Iran. “There is no legal [provision] to not hire women, but it happens that women never fulfill those positions. This is even true that women have more education.” Sahar, a female engineer, described the paucity of employment opportunities in Iran, where gender discrimination was far more pervasive than in the United States. For example, when she applied to engineering positions in the United States, she found that some companies specifically encouraged women to apply; in Iran, no such practice exists. In fact, even the men in interviews acknowledged gendered labor market discrimination in their origin countries.

Another example comes from Natalie, a Mexican-American respondent,¹¹ who explained that she and her mother remained in the United States and naturalized for employment opportunities. Natalie moved to the United States as a child and recounted that her parents wanted to move for a “better life” and because “safety [was] a big issue in Mexico. [Her] family had a business in Mexico… [which made] them a target to extortion.” As Natalie described, in Mexico, small business owners often pay “protection money” to local criminal organizations to avoid conflict. Although crime and violence were the source of her parents’ emigration, Natalie reported that had she been raised in Mexico, she would have been expected to work in the family business. In contrast, in the United States, she attended college and worked as an office manager — a profession that would be difficult for women to attain in Mexico. Similarly, her mother also benefitted from better employment opportunities in the United States, when naturalization expanded access to public sector employment. In stark contrast, her father never naturalized and returned to Mexico, despite high levels of crime and violence, once he met his financial goals.

Gender-Based Violence

Although violence against women is not incorporated into the GII, a prominent theme among women respondents referred to protection against domestic violence. Three out of the six women from gender-unequal societies directly spoke about domestic abuse in relation to their migration and naturalization decisions. It was clear that gender inequality in the guise of either emotional or physical violence conditioned their decision to stay in the destination country and subsequently to naturalize. For these women, naturalization not only altered their economic position in society but also transformed their social position.

Rosario, a Filipina respondent, outlined how emotional abuse and infidelity in her marriage shaped her migration journey. She described her husband as a “playboy” and said, “there is nothing nice to remember about the Philippines.” When she arrived in the United States, she filed for divorce and stated that “[my] husband knew [I] went to the United States, and [my] husband's girlfriend threatened to report [me] to immigration.” Despite the harassment from abroad, Rosario continued with her plan to “get a green card and [eventually] citizen[ship] to secure the stay.” Like many women who experienced trauma, she did not trust authorities in her origin country to resolve her issues because domestic and emotional violence were seen as a private issue between husband and wife, not between the state and the couple. In the United States, her life improved: she gained employment as an accountant, she re-married, and she felt that the government would protect her against potential abuse. When asked if she would move back to the Philippines, even if she had similar economic resources, she said no and made clear her intention from the beginning to naturalize and stay in the United States for the duration of her life.

Among respondents, exposure to domestic abuse, even when not the direct target, conditioned naturalization decisions. Maria (introduced above) spoke of how gender inequality in the form of violence shaped her migration and naturalization decisions.

There is a lot of aggression by men towards women, and men can get away with it. One of my aunts would constantly get beaten by her husband… She would get teeth knocked out. [In the end,] my aunt's children supported her and helped her come to USA to escape domestic abuse. The children convinced her to immigrate. (Maria, Mexico)

For Maria, the mere exposure to patriarchal norms shaped her migration process and naturalization decision. As she discussed her aunt's trauma, she commented that her aunt's story was common in Mexico. Although she said that the “aggressive cat-calling and vulgar language used by men” did not necessarily motivate her to leave, they did influence her decision to remain in the United States. Given the inequalities at home, she would not consider a permanent return to Mexico. Interestingly, Maria did not naturalize until 2016 because she felt that her immigration status as a permanent resident guarded her against deportation. The Trump administration's hostile rhetoric toward Mexican migrants, however, prompted her to naturalize as she feared deportation.

Gender and Naturalization in More Egalitarian Origin Countries

To evaluate whether women from gender egalitarian countries reported gender-specific reasons for naturalization, we interviewed two Ukrainian women, Annika and Kateryna.¹² Neither woman reported enhanced gender status as a reason for migration, settlement, or naturalization. Rather, both reported moving to the United States to improve their economic positions. Annika's story was similar to those reported by our male respondents (see below). She described her family's original intention to immigrate to the United States only to earn enough money to buy a house in Ukraine. She and her husband had no intention to stay permanently. Upon arrival, they worked in a dietary supplement factory, despite having college degrees from Ukraine. At the beginning, this couple resembled the classic Piore (1979) narrative of disregard for status inconsistencies in the destination country. In addition, a primary motive for naturalization was political and economic turmoil in Ukraine and the threat of military draft for their spouses.¹³ For these reasons, Annika planned to naturalize, and Kateryna had already done so.

Women respondents from Ukraine did not emphasize gender inequality as a reason to emigrate or naturalize. In fact, Annika specifically rejected the idea, stating that she “doesn’t see [that] there is gender inequality in Ukraine” and, instead, felt that women in the United States were pressured to work when they did not want to do so. Indeed, she stayed in the United States primarily for economic reasons: goods and commodities were cheaper and more accessible in the United States relative to Ukraine. Both Ukrainian women also reasoned that US citizenship provided them with the opportunity to travel more freely. Annika, for example, believed that “[individuals] get treated differently with an American passport.” Our Ukrainian women respondents confirmed that where there were few differences in gender discrimination between origin and destination countries, the gendered perspective disappeared from the naturalization decision.

Gender Inequality and Men's Naturalization Decisions

Naturalization Choices by Men From Gender-Unequal Origin Countries

In parallel with women immigrants, men respondents cited many reasons for migrating. Interviews revealed that definition of opportunity varied across gender, with men highlighting more of an economic dimension. Indeed, virtually all male respondents cited economic opportunity as a motive to migrate and accrue enough gains during their settlement for potential return migration. For example, one respondent directly stated that he wanted an “adventure and see how the life was… When [I] got married [and stayed, I] found that [I] can make more money in the United States, and so [I] applied for permanent residen[cy].” When asked about the differences between Mexico and the United States, he opined, “You can have nice living [in Mexico] if you are involved in the government and community, but the economic conditions are difficult.” As we describe below, male respondents privileged economic opportunity in their migration decision and linked these economic gains to return migration but also highlighted education and better opportunities for their children, among other factors. Unlike women respondents, though, male respondents’ naturalization decisions were not linked to conditions in the destination country but to the intention to return to the origin country where, they reported, they could live more comfortably. While not all return preferences are necessarily achieved and while plans change over time (Guarnizo 1997), to best reflect male respondents’ sentiments, we report their preferences for settlement or return and how they connected those preferences to naturalization decisions.

Male respondents, in contrast to women respondents, expressed interest in permanent return. For men, return to their origin country was viewed as a means of returning to a higher status; however, we also found that men viewed naturalization as a mechanism to enhance their status in the origin country, a view that originated organically in interviews with men. The value of the US passport was attributed to enhanced international mobility and economic opportunities in the global economy, consistent with research on the non-residential value of passports (Mau 2010; Harpaz 2013). Passports provide status associated with the ability to travel and to develop international business opportunities and are also viewed by the male immigrants as a “prestige” good (Plourde 2009). From this perspective, naturalization was a tool that men and women used to increase their status, whether in the destination or origin country. Their observations are consistent the Henley Passport Index, which provides an indicator of the number of countries the passport holder can enter without prior authorization (Henley and Partners 2019). As is visible in Table 3, the US passport is much more highly ranked than passports of any country in our sample of respondents, including Ukraine.

Table 3.

Indicators of Passport Mobility.

	Iran	The Philippines	Mexico	Ukraine	The United States
Passport Index 2019	39	64	157	126	183
Passport Index Rank 2019	101	80	24	44	6

Source: Henley and Partners (2019).

As with women respondents, interviews with male immigrants conveyed a broad range of information on naturalization decisions. Here, we focus on gender status and naturalization as the variables of interest. Men cited many and varied reasons for immigrating to the United States. In countries where gender inequality was large, five of six male respondents saw their stay here as temporary and planned to return to their origin country in either the shorter or longer term, after retirement. However, naturalization was associated with return, rather than stay. For example, Payam (male Iranian respondent) stated that he hoped to gain US citizenship so that he could “travel to other countries easily and to do business more easily abroad.” Payam immigrated to the United States for graduate education but planned to return home to take over his family business. For him, a master's degree was a mechanism to “have fun for two years” and be able to travel to a country he otherwise could not. Given the political and economic instability at home, he decided to stay in the United States but hoped to return to Iran when economic conditions improved, particularly if he could make more money in Iran. In a similar vein, Roham (male Iranian respondent) stated, US “citizenship allows me to travel and if Iran's passport was as easy to travel with, [then] I would stay on the green card.” Roham emigrated to improve his daughters’ lives and eventually hoped to return to Iran. The vocabulary he employed is particularly telling: in the United States, he reported that he was “a nobody” whereas in Iran, he was “a somebody.” For these men, status was central to return migration.

Mexican and Filipino male respondents had similar responses. José, a Mexican respondent, and Andres, a Filipino respondent, both stated that they wanted to retire in their origin country. In fact, Andres stated that he only immigrated to the United States to enhance his financial well-being so that he could live a better life in the Philippines. He reasoned that in the Philippines, healthcare was fragmented and expensive for the average citizen. Consequently, he immigrated to the United States to access the US healthcare system and to be able to have US insurance while living in the Philippines. In his perspective, naturalization was the avenue that provided access to US health insurance and the ability to lead a better life in his origin country. Similarly, José stated that he planned to remain in the United States to earn more money and to move back to Mexico upon retirement. Acknowledging the conflict within families over return plans, José stated that he would move to Mexico, even without his wife, as his life would improve in Mexico. He emphasized that because he naturalized, he could travel freely back and forth from Mexico to the United States and still reside permanently in Mexico, where he felt more at ease. For both of these men, naturalization enhanced their status in the origin country.

Indeed, men were the only participants who expressed interest in return migration. In fact, the more gender unequal the origin country, the more likely that men desired return migration. However, men linked naturalization to return migration; for them, naturalization provided access to the US passport, increased their ability to travel, and increased pay. In comparison, not a single woman from Iran, Mexico, or the Philippines expressed a desire to return permanently to their origin countries.

Gender and Naturalization in More Egalitarian Origin Countries

Finally, we interviewed two Ukrainian men. Anton stated that he emigrated to “escape the political and economic situation in Ukraine,” and Dmytro left Ukraine because his wife was an American and wanted to raise their family in the United States. Both Ukrainian men planned to settle in the United States because of economic and political turmoil in Ukraine, as well as because of their concern about the military draft, given the ongoing conflict with Russia. Thus, naturalization brought benefits, similar to those noted by women respondents, associated with settlement in the United States. Anton also pointed to political benefits, stating that naturalization provided “the ability to vote and make a difference” in his community. Similarly, Dmytro explained that US citizenship expanded his employment opportunities; after obtaining US citizenship, he applied for a public sector job that increased his economic status. However, like their counterparts from more gender-unequal countries, both Ukrainian men also adopted the strategic component of naturalization and affirmed that US citizenship provided them with the ability to travel and increased their economic opportunities. Overall, where gender differences between the origin and destination country were minimal, gendered distinctions in naturalization decisions disappeared.

Conclusions

It is well established that individuals naturalize for many different reasons and, often, for multiple reasons (Vink 2017). Here, we explored the ways in which gender status may play a role in naturalization decisions to generate new hypotheses about the relationship between gender and naturalization. We used semi-structured interviews to investigate gender's role because simple survey questions asking the gender of the respondent cannot reveal if and how men's and women's decision to naturalize may vary. First, our interview data contribute to the literature on immigrant naturalization by incorporating research on the role of status into the naturalization decision. We enlarge Piore's (1979) definition of status to include an ascriptive (gender) dimension, in addition to the original achievement dimension. We, then, extend the analysis of status from men to women and connect status to the benefits derived from naturalization. We find that where gender inequality is greater in the origin than in the destination country, migrants’ choice of settlement or return is gendered and the benefits of naturalization for achieving status gains is incorporated into the naturalization calculus. Where gender inequality between the origin and destination countries is small, the role of gender status in naturalization decisions diminishes.

Second, we contribute to existing research on gender and settlement decisions. Existing research on migrant settlement suggests that women whose status improved upon migration are reluctant to return to their origin country (Grasmuck and Pessar 1991; Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994). Our research contributes to the findings of the ethnographic literature on gendered preferences for settlement and return by extending those findings to the naturalization decision. As noted above, gender status varies widely by country, and there is no guarantee that migrants will move to a country where women's status improves. Women respondents from gender-unequal countries provided gendered accounts of settlement and naturalization decisions and testified that cementing improved status was one reason to naturalize. Specifically, interviews suggested that opportunity for women was defined by the ability to live a life that would be unavailable in their origin country — a life that allowed them to participate in the workforce on a more equal basis, to gain financial independence, and to reduce their exposure to gendered-based violence. Although gender status was not uniform across all dimensions, women from Iran, the Philippines, and Mexico saw their societies as highly gendered in ways that disadvantaged them, corresponding to higher empirical scores on the GII. These gender differences were acknowledged by male respondents; the main difference was women's reference to these differences as a central reason for migration, settlement, and naturalization whereas male respondents connected naturalization decisions to planned return. By contrast, men and women from Ukraine observed fewer gender disparities and told similar stories for migrating, remaining, and naturalizing — the anticipated outcome from the frame of gender status. In other words, among respondents, when gender status between the destination and origin country converged, so, too, did men's and women's rationale for naturalization.

A third contribution that emerged from interviews is the non-residential value of citizenship in cases of naturalization through residence. Naturalization through residence does not necessarily imply permanent settlement. Thus, we found that the non-residential value of citizenship, as described in the strategic citizenship research (Harpaz and Mateos 2019),¹⁴ may also apply to migrants who plan to return home after achieving their economic goals through migration. As noted above, in contrast to women respondents from gender-unequal countries, men respondents from gender-unequal countries privileged return to their origin country as a means of regaining lost status. However, our research also suggests that naturalization can provide benefits to men, even when planning return to the origin country, because of the passport's prestige and the economic and travel opportunities it brings. We found that passports had a value in their own right, apart from the rights granted to naturalized citizens who settle in the destination country and that this value was the reason that male immigrants also sought naturalization, despite their desire to return to their origin country, to become “a somebody” again.

Semi-structured interviews present the opportunity for respondents to construct their own narrative, which may incorporate elements that researchers have previously overlooked. In the case of naturalization decisions, the elements highlighted in our interviews clarified the elements of social status that were most important to both women and men and demonstrated the link between changes in gender status and the desire to naturalize. Conversations with immigrants themselves, in introducing and highlighting elements of the naturalization decision, point to a continuing lacuna in the quantitative research on naturalization — a clear understanding of the underlying mechanisms/decision-making processes in the naturalization decision. Our research generated hypotheses that may be generalizable to other US states, as well as to countries that are similar to the United States on specific dimensions — wealthy democracies that are more gender egalitarian and enable immigrant settlement and naturalization, although even the potential absence of generalizability does not invalidate the effort to better understand the role gender plays in naturalization decisions. Our semi-structured interviews suggest possible generalizable elements below:

H₁: The lower the gender discrimination in the destination country relative to the origin country, the more likely women will intend to remain permanently in the destination country rather than return to the origin country.

H₂: The lower the gender discrimination in the destination country relative to the origin country, the more likely women will naturalize in the destination country.

H₃: The lower the gender discrimination in the destination country relative to the origin country, the more likely men will intend to return to their origin country to regain or enhance their status.

H₄: The “stronger” the passport in the destination country relative to the origin country, the more likely men will naturalize in the destination country.

While our research focused specifically on the role of gender status, there may be additional gendered reasons for naturalization that were not fully developed in interviews but represent new avenues for gendered research on naturalization. The first strand is associated with women's family care responsibility in both the origin and destination country. According to Gilbertson and Singer (2003, 47), “Women's stronger ties to the [country of destination] are embedded in family relationships. These relationships facilitate their transition to citizen… These differences underscore the centrality of gender and the gendered construction of the family to the process of becoming a citizen.” While Gilbertson and Singer (2003) emphasize the elements that tie women to the destination country, Duda-Mikulin (2018) points out the importance of care responsibilities in the origin country, associated with both ageing parents and extended family and children who remain in the origin country. Future research should explore more fully the weight of inter-generational and transnational care responsibility and how these factor into preferences for settlement and return and connect to naturalization decisions.

The degree to which migrant women's intersecting and marginalized identities inform their naturalization decision is another area for future research. Although conditions may be less desirable in the origin country, many women migrants in the destination country remain vulnerable, due to various factors (Bürkner 2012). Respondents in this study highlighted labor market vulnerabilities, but migrant women's labor market insecurity is just one consequence of structural inequality, along with issues of class, race/ethnicity, and nationality (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2017). Overall, the research agenda on naturalization would be enriched by attention to immigrant women's transnational care responsibilities, as well as their unique vulnerabilities based on labor market position and identity markers.

Overall, we encourage future research to incorporate gender into research on citizenship and naturalization and to evaluate our proposed hypotheses employing various qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Greater understanding of the connection between gender and naturalization will benefit from the study of a full diversity of groups and contexts, reflecting an inclusive range of social, racial, economic, religious, legal, political, familial, and other characteristics (Grasmuck and Pessar 1991).

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-mrx-10.1177_01979183221142774 - Supplemental material for Social Status and Gendered Pathways to Citizenship

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-mrx-10.1177_01979183221142774 for Social Status and Gendered Pathways to Citizenship by Jeannette Money, Sara Kazemian, Audie Klotz, and Marisella Rodriguez in International Migration Review

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Department of Political Science, University of California, Davis, and the Feminist Research Institute, University of California, Davis.

ORCID iD

Jeannette Money

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

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