A new GLO Discussion Paper using the 1940 US census finds that the concentration of naturalized co-ethnics in the network positively affected individual naturalization operating mainly through information dissemination.
GLO Discussion Paper No. 1049, 2022
Social Networks and (Political) Assimilation in the Age of Mass Migration – Download PDF
by Biavaschi, Costanza & Giulietti, Corrado & Zenou, Yves
GLO Fellows Corrado Giulietti and Yves Zenou
Corrado Giulietti 
Yves Zenou
Author Abstract: This paper investigates the causal pathways through which ethnic social networks influence individual naturalization. Using the complete-count Census of 1930, we digitize information on the exact residence of newly arrived immigrants in New York City. This allows us to define networks with a granularity detail that was not used before for historical data – the Census block – and therefore to overcome issues of spatial sorting. By matching individual observations with the complete-count Census of 1940, we estimate the impact that the exogenous fraction of naturalized co-ethnics in the network observed in 1930 has on the probability of immigrants to acquire citizenship a decade later. Our results indicate that the concentration of naturalized co-ethnics in the network positively affects individual naturalization and that this relationship operates through one main channel: information dissemination. Indeed, immigrants who live among naturalized co-ethnics are more likely to naturalize because they have greater access to critical information about the benefits and procedures of naturalization.
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