Marriage and Citizenship Among U.S. Immigrants: Who Marries Whom and Who Becomes a Citizen?

The existing assimilation literature shows that having a U.S.-born spouse, relative to a foreign-born spouse, is associated with a higher probability of becoming a U.S. citizen (naturalization). However, the foreign-born spouses are a heterogeneous group. I disaggregate them by identifying their citizenship status in the U.S. and document that it plays a larger role than simply their place of birth. The relative hazard of naturalization among immigrants with a citizen spouse, U.S.-born or foreign-born, is more than double the hazard of immigrants married to a noncitizen spouse. In fact, the largest increase in the naturalization hazard among immigrants in the U.S. is associated with foreign-born citizen spouses.