Granting Birthright Citizenship - A Door Opener for Immigrant Children's Educational Participation and Success?

31 Pages Posted: 30 Sep 2014

See all articles by Christina Felfe

Christina Felfe

University of St. Gallen; University of St. Gallen - Swiss Institute for Empirical Economic Research (SEW)

Judith Saurer

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) - Ifo Institute

Date Written: September 29, 2014

Abstract

Does granting birthright citizenship help immigrant children integrating in the host country’s educational system? We address this question using a reform of the German naturalization law in 1999 that entitled children born after January 1, 2000 with birthright citizenship. We use a difference-in-difference design that compares children born shortly before and after the cut-off in years of policy change and years where no policy change took place. Our empirical analysis relies on administrative data from school entrance examinations and on the German Micro Census. We find positive effects on immigrant children’s educational participation, both in non-mandatory preschool and upper secondary school. In addition, birthright citizenship enhances children‘s socio-behavioral development.

JEL Classification: I210, K370

Suggested Citation

Felfe, Christina and Saurer, Judith, Granting Birthright Citizenship - A Door Opener for Immigrant Children's Educational Participation and Success? (September 29, 2014). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 4959, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2502792 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2502792

Christina Felfe (Contact Author)

University of St. Gallen ( email )

Bodanstrasse 6
St. Gallen, 9000
Switzerland

University of St. Gallen - Swiss Institute for Empirical Economic Research (SEW)

Varnbuelstrasse 14
St. Gallen, 9000
Switzerland

Judith Saurer

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) - Ifo Institute ( email )

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, 01069
Germany

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