7
ISSUES: Citizenship
Chapter 1: Citizenship in the UK
the newly-required knowledge and
skill tests but also the fees required to
prepare for and take them). Further, the
language and knowledge requirements
would seem to pose a greater burden
on nationals of poorer, less educated
and non-English-speaking countries
(Ryan 2008), and may have deterred
applications among nationals of such
countries.
Residency, marriage and
children are the three main
grounds for citizenship
grants
As noted above, British citizenship
grants are divided among three main
categories: migrants fulfilling the five-
year residency requirement, spouses
and civil partners of British citizens, and
underage children being registered as
citizens. About half of grants overall
come from residency requirements (51%
in2015). The two family routes (marriage/
civil partnership and children) account
for slightly less than half combined
(marriage/civil partnershipmade up 21%
in 2015; children made up 24% in 2015).
The remaining 4% were “other” bases
for citizenship, including, for example,
transfers from British overseas territories
citizenship to full citizenship status.
Each of the main pathways to
naturalisation (residence, marriage and
registration of minor children) grew in
numbers from 2000 to 2013 albeit with a
temporary decrease in 2008. The decline
in citizenship grants in 2014 also took
place across all of three main categories.
Residence-related grants increased the
most over the 2000s, both in number
and in percentage terms. Grants from
residence increased from 35,000 in
2000 to 113,300 in 2013, before falling
to 62,500 in 2014 and 60,800 in 2015.
Naturalisation through marriage almost
doubled in the decade of the 2000s,
from 27,400 in 2000 to 52,600 in 2009
but then decreased to 24,400 in 2015.
Grants to minor children increased from
19,200 in 2000 to a peak of 48,600 in
2010, and stood at 28,700 in 2015. Since
2000 residence-related grants have
grown from 43% of naturalisations in
2000 to 51% in 2015, while marriage-
based grants declined from 33% to
20% in the same period. Minor children
registrations constituted 23% in 2000
and 24% in 2015. “Other” categories
fluctuated between 1% and 5%.
89%of grants of citizenship
in 2015 were to non-EU
nationals
The largest groups of newly naturalised
UK citizens in 2015 had prior citizenship
from India, Pakistan, Nigeria, and South
Africa. Asian nations contributed the
most to growth in naturalisations over
time. African nationals also contributed
heavily to the growth in naturalisations
in the 2000s. Nigeria, South Africa,
Zimbabwe, and Ghana ranked among
the top ten prior nationalities of new UK
citizens in 2015.
Nationals of EU countries made up only
11% of citizenship grants in 2015, despite
their significant contribution to overall
UK migration over the past decade. Data
on naturalisations of EU citizens for 2016 –
before and after theUK voted to leave the
European Union – will become available
in May 2017.
Europe and the Middle East grew as
sourcesofnaturalisingBritishcitizensuntil
2013, while only the Americas declined as
a source region for naturalisations during
this period. Naturalisations among
citizens of countries that joined the EU
in 2004 are a small share of total grants
of citizenship (5% in 2015), but increased
sharply from 2009 onwards as people
arriving in the mid-2000s began to be
eligible to naturalise. The number of
citizens of accession (A8) countries rose
from 869 in 2009 to just under 8,300 in
2013. Since then it has dropped to 5,800
in 2015.
Grants of citizenship to nationals of North
and South American countries averaged
21,100 annually between 1983 and 1989
before dropping to only 4,900 annually in
the 1990s and 10,800 annually from 2000
to 2015.
Legal barriers, language
and integration, and
poverty in origin country
affect naturalisation rates
Naturalisation reflects both legal
requirements and a personal choice on
the part of a foreign national to apply
to become British. Therefore, one might
expect that naturalisation is more likely
when there are few legal barriers, when
naturalisation brings greater benefits,
and when naturalising does not mean
giving up much of value, such as a
previous citizenship. Strands of research
have investigated each of these aspects
of the determinants of naturalisation
rates.
First, naturalisation rates are indeed
lower in nations that impose more
legal
requirements
for
acquiring
citizenship. Traditionally, nations have
been categorised as following one of
two logics of citizenship: jus soli (literally
‘right of soil’) where citizenship comes
from being born in the country, and
jus sanguinis
(literally ‘right of blood’)
where citizenship comes from parents’
citizenship and in-country birth does
not confer citizenship. Contemporary
citizenship law in many nations blends
the two logics in varying proportions.
Overall, British citizenship law is more
open to naturalisation than traditional
jus sanguinis nations such as Germany.
However, although it may be viewed
as the original jus soli country, it is now
less open than other traditional jus soli
nations such as the USA and Canada.
In a comprehensive comparative study,
Janoski (2010) identifies as many as
12 requirements that countries may
impose; British citizenship law now
includes many from this list (Sawyer
2009).
These include requirements of good
conduct, language skills, efforts toward
cultural integration (measured in the
form of the Life in the UK test), years of
residency, and navigation of complex
and expensive application procedures.
From 2002 to 2015, the majority of
refusals to grant citizenship were
because of a failure to meet either
the ‘good character’ requirement or
the residence requirement. The ‘good
character’ requirement accounts for
an increasing number of rejected
applications for naturalisation, rising to
42% of all refusals in 2015 (from 10% to
13% in the years immediately preceding
legal changes to this requirement in
2008). Failure to demonstrate language
proficiency or knowledge of life in the UK
comprised 5% of refusals (532 people).
Themost common reason for refusal was
the failure to meet the ‘good character’
