To Naturalize or Not? A Comparative Study of Naturalization Decisions and Meanings of Citizenship Among Migrants in Canada

This study examines how migrants in Canada make sense of citizenship and how they navigate decisions to naturalize, delay naturalization, or refrain from pursuing citizenship despite being eligible. It further explores how these meanings and decisions shape migrants’ longer-term plans and mobility imaginaries, including intentions to remain in Canada, return to a country of origin, or pursue onward migration. 

While naturalization trends in Canada have shifted over the past two decades and are well documented through quantitative research, less is known about the lived experiences, meanings, and considerations that inform migrants’ naturalization decisions over time. Centring migrants’ perspectives, this study addresses this gap by foregrounding the subjective and relational dimensions of naturalization decision-making, challenging linear assumptions about integration and citizenship uptake. Its findings contribute to public and policy conversations on citizenship, belonging, and integration, offering nuanced insight into the individual-level dynamics that underpin broader patterns of naturalization within Canada’s evolving immigration landscape.

This study adopts a qualitative approach to centre migrants’ perspectives and lived experiences, examining how migrants in Canada understand and navigate decisions about naturalization, citizenship, and future plans related to staying in or leaving the country. It attends to these processes across different stages of settlement and varied migration trajectories. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with naturalized citizens and eligible permanent residents, with particular attention to intersectional identities, one- and two-step pathways to permanent residency, and the ways in which citizenship policies in both Canada and migrants’ countries of origin shape decision-making over time. Participants come from a diverse range of countries, including those that permit dual citizenship (Iran, Pakistan, the Philippines, and France) and those that prohibit it (China, India, Nepal, and the Netherlands). Interviews examine participants’ migration histories, understandings of citizenship, and long-term mobility plans, with attention to how life-course milestones intersect with structural conditions to shape evolving motivations to naturalize or opt out of citizenship.

This study is also part of the international CITMIG project, “Citizenship and Immigrant Integration: A Multidimensional Analysis,” an interdisciplinary initiative that examines the role of citizenship in immigrant integration across four immigrant-receiving countries, including France, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, and Canada, and is funded by the Institut Convergences Migrations (ICM), a France-based research institute.

Preliminary findings from the study were presented at the Immigration, Citizenship, and Intergroup Contact workshop (external link)  at the Paris School of Economics in December 2025.