Woodrow-Lafield, Karen A. 2009. “Assessing Immigrant Naturalization: Longitudinal Research Findings and Challenges,” Presentation for the 2009 Research Conference, Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology, November 2-4, Washington, D.C.

Linked administrative records on immigrants and naturalizations constitute a dataset for modeling naturalization over duration in lawful permanent residence with covariates related to admission characteristics that may reflect social capital and human capital. This presentation reviews several recommendations and research programs in establishing such data for researchers, beginning with expert recommendations in the early 1980s that led to release of two public use datasets in the early 1990s. Through the Immigration-to-Naturalization Project, the linked dataset was created for 1978-1991 immigrants followed until 1996. Several empirical studies show the importance of origin country in explaining differential timing of naturalization and varying influences of human and social capital. In particular, key studies show that understanding naturalization outcomes involves not only considering observed heterogeneity on demographic, origin, and admission characteristics but also accounting for unobserved heterogeneity, such as reception contexts, socioeconomic assimilation, and orientation to origin communities. The discussion reviews improvements in federal statistics on immigrant naturalization, addresses the challenge of researcher access, and makes recommendations for research on naturalization as an aspect of immigrant incorporation, decisionmaking to settle or emigrate, and navigating the application process as well as taking English classes and learning U.S. civics and history.