Marriage and citizenship among immigrants in Italy: a closer look

The integration pathways for migrants are complex and consist of multiple steps that can vary depending on a wide range of factors, such as legal status, education level, language skills, and host country policies. Moreover, the sequence of these steps may differ significantly from one individual to another. The paper investigates the relationship between the legal integration pathway (residence permit and acquisition of citizenship) and marriage. One of the original contributions of this work lies in the use of integrated administrative microdata sources. The analysis is based on two different cohorts of first residence permits issued in 2014 and 2018, which were integrated both with data on marriages and on citizenship acquisitions and new citizens. Using a longitudinal perspective, the hypothesis of this study is that personal and migratory characteristics influence migrants’ integration paths.