The effect of birthright citizenship on parental integration outcomes

The integration of immigrants is the subject of ongoing public debate, and devising measures to enable the assimilation of newcomers ranks high on the political agendas of many countries. This paper focuses on the legal institution of citizenship and analyzes the consequences of birthright citizenship introduced in Germany. We use the exogenous variation provided by the 1999 reform of the German nationality law to study the effect of children’s legal status on the integration of immigrant parents. We find that foreign-born parents are most likely to interact with the local community and use the German language if their children are entitled to German citizenship at birth.