Family Reunification and Citizenship for Chinese Immigrants, New York City

Karen A. Woodrow-Lafield, no affiliation
Bunnak Poch, Royal Phnom Penh University

This study examines the timing of naturalization for Chinese immigrants settling in New York City. Immigration helped sustain New York City population levels in the 1990s. Chinese immigrants naturalize more quickly than other major groups, and they sponsor many family members under immediate relatives provisions. Extensive investigation of continuous-time hazard models over duration showed the best models were based on the log-logistic form of the underlying hazard function with statistical controls for unobserved heterogeneity. Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens were naturalizing more quickly than immigrants under employment or family preference categories. For most cohorts, immigrants reporting professional, managerial, technical sales, or administrative occupations showed propensity to naturalize more quickly than others. The gender effect was inconsistent, although women of recent cohorts were naturalizing more quickly, perhaps due to changing gender roles. For recent cohorts, occupational background, younger age, and having prior nonimmigrant experience seem more important than previously.