An official website of the United States government
Here’s how you know
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock (
) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
The U.S. foreign-born population is 36.5 million, with 14.4 million naturalized citizens. Research documents that naturalized citizens are less likely to register and vote than native citizens. Since Bass and Casper’s (2002) baseline national estimates from the 1996 Current Population Survey (CPS), 5.7 million more citizens have naturalized. Given population changes and the increasing political debate over immigration, we explore how nativity influences voting behavior across a decade of elections. Using the CPS, we address whether naturalized citizens continue to be less likely to register and vote, and whether the nativity status effect is consistent across time and in both presidential and congressional elections. Our results suggest that, net of social and demographic factors, naturalized citizens are less likely to register and vote than native citizens across all years. We find evidence that the nativity association has stayed at least as strong over the course of the decade. Furthermore, we find that nativity has at least as strong of an effect on voting behavior in congressional versus presidential elections.
Share
Related Information
WORKING PAPER
Voting and Registration Working PapersSome content on this site is available in several different electronic formats. Some of the files may require a plug-in or additional software to view.
Top