Page 83 - valuing-diversity-guidance-for-labour-market-integration-of-migrants

Valuing diversity: guidance for labour market integration of migrants

19 should encourage reflection in each country about the origins and structure of
this inequality and ways to address it.
Another indicator used in the analysis of social integration is acquisition of
citizenship by foreign citizens. Unlike indicators of inequality, interpretation of
naturalisation is less straightforward, since it reflects a mix of cultural attitudes,
civil participation, political choices and effective possibilities to obtain citizenship.

Figure 20 Share of resident foreigners who acquired citizenship 2010 (%)

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6

5

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2

1

0
PL SE UK FR HU FI SI ES LU IE IT DE DK GR LV AT EE LT SK CZ

Source: Eurostat, population statistics, acquisition of citizenship from available data. Online data code
[migr_acq].

In some cases the data might reflect structural aspects more than individual
attitudes, since some of the countries which have higher naturalisation rates are
post-colonial nations (France, the United Kingdom) with eased access to
citizenship for those from ex-colonial territories. Beyond the ease in
administrative procedures, it is arguable that linguistic proximity and a shared
cultural heritage are also strong motivations for the acquisition of citizenship.
The Hungarian and Polish cases reflect historical cultural and economic links
with neighbour countries which are not part of the Schengen area. Both social
reasons, such as cross-border weddings, and economic ones (hiring of workers)
justify these results. The case of Sweden is explainable by the support for
naturalisation procedures for political refugees.

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