Citizenship of person

Status: This standard was approved as a departmental standard on April 18, 2011.

Definition

Citizenship refers to the country where the person has citizenship. A person may have more than one citizenship. A person may be stateless, that is, they may have no citizenship. Citizenship can be by birth or naturalization.

Person refers to an individual and is the unit of analysis for most social statistics programs.

Usage

Citizenship of person may be analyzed by considering each response separately in analysis. A person may be a citizen of more than one country and, consequently, provide more than one response to a question on citizenship. The sum of the citizenship responses can be greater than the total population count because a person may report more than one citizenship.

Conformity to relevant internationally recognized standards

This standard is compatible with the recommendations for censuses contained in the United Nations' "Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Revision 3", 2017. The UN recommends that information be collected to identify citizens by birth, citizens by naturalization and non-nationals. It further recommends collecting information from non-nationals on their country of citizenship. This standard conforms to some, but not all, of these recommendations. Additionally, in accord with UN recommendations, the statistical treatment of stateless persons and persons with dual nationality is made clear. Similarly, the "Conference of European Statisticians Recommendations for the 2020 Censuses of Population and Housing", 2015 also recommend collecting information on citizenship, on whether it was acquired by birth or naturalization and on country of citizenship. It also recommends collecting data on stateless persons and on the portion of the population with dual or multiple citizenships.

Classifications

Relation to previous version

  • Citizenship of person April 18, 2011 to current

    This standard is compatible with the previous standard. The standard now includes four new classifications that allow for analysis on the corresponding dimensions and cross classification in data presentation. The classification of Country of Citizenship has been updated to be compatible with the corresponding Classification of Countries and Areas of Interest.

  • Citizenship July 15, 1998 to April 17, 2011
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