Who can become a full member of the club?—Results from a conjoint survey experiment on public attitudes about the naturalisation of non‐EU migrants in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark

In this article, we study attitudes towards the naturalisation of non-European (EU) migrants in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. This is done using a conjoint experiment. Respondents are presented with profiles of non-EU-migrants, whose attributes are varied over labour market status, education, language skills, time lived in the destination country, family relations, religious background and gender. We find a preference for granting citizenship to non-EU migrants with education and labour market experience, thus supporting theories of economic reasoning. We also find a preference for granting citizenship to non-EU migrants with non-Muslim backgrounds, family attachment to natives and language skills, thus supporting theories of preferences for cultural similarity. We find these patterns to be stable across the four countries despite differences in citizenship rules and discourses. The patterns are even stable when comparing the respondents' age, gender, education, migrant status, voting patterns and general views about migration. The natives' selection of new citizens is explained by a novel theoretical argument of citizenship being a club-good.