The objective of this paper is to obtain new empirical insights into the
integration of naturalized immigrants in Switzerland. In particular, we focus on a
comparison of first-generation immigrants with and without Swiss citizenship. The
analysis on the basis of the 2008 wave of the Swiss Labor Force Survey is motivated
by findings in the literature highlighting the role of the acquisition of citizenship in
the integration process. In line with those findings, our results demonstrate that
naturalized first-generation immigrants tend to have higher wages than nonnaturalized
immigrants. An applied Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition technique
demonstrates that this result is strongly connected to the higher human capital
endowments of immigrants who have attained Swiss citizenship. The findings are in
line with other case studies stating that immigrants positively select into citizenship.