Like parent, like child: how attitudes towards immigrants spill over to the political inclusion of their children

Abstract

Across Europe, citizenship is traditionally attributed at birth through descent only. As immigrant populations grow, policy-makers have come under pressure to extend citizenship rights to the children of immigrants born in the country. While such inclusive measures often counter political opposition, public attitudes on this question remain remarkably underexplored. In this study, we report on the results of an original choice-based conjoint survey experiment designed to examine which parental attributes affect respondents’ willingness to grant citizenship to newborns. We implement the survey experiment in Italy, where over one million children do not have Italian citizenship, yet reform proposals have so far been unsuccessful. In line with our pre-registered expectations, we find that respondents are more likely to support birthright citizenship for children born to parents who are economically, legally and socially integrated in society. These attitudes vary little by political background, education and age-category of respondents. Our findings suggest that incorporating immigration-related conditionality in birthright citizenship proposals is key to convincing sceptical publics of the legitimacy of such measures.