Population by age, sex, marital status and foreign citizenship
Annually
The nation, county, municipality and basic statistical unit
320 - Division for Population Statistics
§§ 2-1, 2-2, 3 – 2
Not relevant.
Not relevant.
The statistics show the composition of the population (by sex, age, marital status, and residence) over time.
Annual figures for the population by sex, age, marital status and citizenship can be found dating back to 1 January 1976, whereas corresponding figures without citizenship can be found from 1 January 1971. Earlier than that, figures exist from censuses held every ten years, as well as some estimated figures from the intervening years.
Public administration, research institutes, the insurance industry, the media and private persons
Covers all persons registered as a resident of Norway on 1 January. For who is counted as a resident of Norway, see 4.1, Definition of the main terms. All figures cover the de jure population.
Persons having migrated to Norway to work for less than half a year are not included in the statistics, and persons having emigrated without having registered this, are likewise not included.
Since 1970 the statistics are based on population register data. Since 1946 each municipality has had a local population registry that registers all residents in the municipality, pursuant to the Population Registration Act and its regulations. The working method in the national population register was changed in 2005, and 97 more extensive registrations were made, which cover the registrations for several municipalities in each county. In 2008, a number of regional offices were established, which assumed responsibility for the register. The population register receives notifications of births, deaths, marriages, divorces, migrations etc. from different sources for the municipalities covered by the register
The register was built up from 1964 to 1966 on the basis of the 1960 census, at the same time as the 11-digit national identity number was introduced as identification. The Office of the National Registrar, which administrates the register, was transferred in 1991 from Statistics Norway to the Directorate of Taxes.
Updating of the Central Population Register is done in part by the local population registries, which are connected to the DSF via terminals, and in part by the Directorate of Taxes. The basis of the statistics on changes in the population is electronic copies to Statistics Norway of all such register updates. The reports are also used to update a separate Statistics Norway population database kept for statistical purposes, which forms the basis for the statistics on the composition of the population.
Not relevant.
From January 1998 electronic copies of reports have been transferred daily from the National Registration Office to Statistics Norway, which was previously done monthly. Before May 1995 Statistics Norway received the reports on magnetic tape every month..
In addition to the checks made by the DSF, Statistics Norway performs checks for statistical purposes. For more details of our control routines in the various subject areas, see Dokumentasjon av BESYS-befolkningsstatistikksystemet. Befolkningsendringer i 1998 og befolkningsbasen (BEBAS) 1. januar 2000, Notater 2000/24 (in Norwegian only)
Population (resident persons) are summed up to basic enumeration unit, partof town municipality level.
Not relevant.
Mean population: Average population at the beginning and end of the year.
Resident: Who is regarded as a resident of Norway and where in Norway a person shall be counted as a resident, is stipulated in the Population Registration Act of 16 January 1970. The regulations to the act were amended effective 1 February 1980.
The following main points from the registration rules decide who is regarded as a resident of Norway:
Persons from countries outside the Nordic countries are regarded as residents of Norway when they have lived here or intend to live here at least 6 months, even though the stay is temporary. The same six-month rule applies to migration from Norway to a country outside the Nordic countries.
The aforementioned six-month rule does not always apply to migration between Norway and another Nordic country. In Denmark, for example, a person is registered as a resident if the person intends to stay in the country at least 3 months. The same limit is used for out-migration. In Sweden and Finland the limit is one year. For persons who come/move to Norway from another Nordic country, the six-month rule is still valid, as residence is decided by the country of immigration's rules, cf. the Nordic agreement on inter-Nordic migration dated 8 May 1989. This agreement replaced a similar agreement from 5 December 1968.
People living in Svalbard, on Jan Mayen or in Norwegian dependencies who on departure were registered in the population register of a Norwegian municipality shall still be counted as residents of that municipality. The same rules apply to people on the Norwegian continental shelf.
Norwegian foreign and consular service staff and Norwegian military personnel posted for duty abroad are counted as residents of Norway. The same applies to their families.
Foreign staff at foreign embassies and consular services and foreign personnel attached to NATO are not counted as residents of Norway. The same applies to their families.
The main rule for where in Norway a person is regarded as a resident is that the person resides where he/she has their regular daily rest (night's sleep).
If the daily rest is taken in shifts at one or more places, the person is regarded as residing where, overall, they can be said to live on a regular basis. Spouses with a joint home and persons sharing a joint home with their children are regarded as residing in this home without regard to where they have their daily rest.
Single persons who attend school in another municipality are as a main rule still regarded as resident of the place they lived before starting school (the residence of their parents). Similar registration principles also apply to conscripts serving their initial military service, alternative national service conscripts, prisoners, and people admitted to hospitals.
Persons admitted to or placed in other institutions or private care are as a main rule regarded as residents when the stay is intended to last, or turns out to last, at least 6 months.
From March 1987 to January 1994 asylum seekers were usually counted as immigrants and hence also as residents even though the processing of their application for residence had not been completed. Before and after this period, only asylum seekers with residence permits have been registered.
Country and citizenship in population statistic Marital status Municipality
Some errors made during the collecting and processing of the data are unavoidable and include coding, revision and data processing errors etc. Extensive efforts have been made to minimize these errors, and we regard these types of errors to be relatively insignificant.
Dropout errors will be found to the extent there are persons staying in Norway not being registered as residents according to the regulations, laid down in the law on population registration of 16 January 1970. We refer to point 4.1. Definitions of the main concepts and variables.
None because all the material rather than samples is used.
The quality of the basic data from the Central Population Register is generally very good for statistical purposes. One minus is nevertheless residence registration - in part because too many are registered as residents, but also because certain groups are registered as having another domicile than where they actually live. This is particularly true because according to the rules unmarried students are listed as residing with their parent(s).
Registration of residence
From a statistical viewpoint, registration of residence can seem to be prone to error. This is particularly true in relation to the ideal situation in which everyone is registered according to the day's-rest principle. Failure to report a change of residence or delay the reporting of it also contributes to such deviations. For many analysis and planning purposes the actual residence is of interest.
A survey undertaken following the Population and Housing census in 1990 concluded that the registered residence was incorrect for 5.5 per cent of the population. Much of the deviation is due to the legal definition of residence used in the Central Population Register, which requires that students and residents of joint households to be registered somewhere else than the place they actually live. Using the place of residence definition, between 1.8 and 3.0 per cent of the people were incorrectly placed. Schjalm: "Kvalitetsundersøkelsen for Folke- og boligtelling 1990" (Quality survey for the Population and Housing Census 1990), Reports 96/10, Statistics Norway.
Out-registration
People who move abroad without reporting their departure have also been a major source of error in recent years. As a result of surveys conducted in 1993, nearly 3 000 foreign citizens who had left Norway earlier without reporting the move were registered as living abroad. Oslo was the most affected by these out-registrations (1 600 persons). Some of this out-migration should have been distributed over several years. Out-registration was also done in 1994, 1995, 1997 and 1998. Oslo registered almost 2 000 foreign citizens as having left the country in 1997 and 1998.
Despite the actions taken to remove from the rolls immigrants who have left the country without reporting their move to the population registries, there will always be a number of persons registered as residents of Norway even though they no longer live here.
Conversely, a number of people are living illegally in Norway at any one time and are therefore not included in the population count. Most of them live in Oslo. Because these two factors pull in opposite directions, they largely cancel each other out
Due to municipal mergers and divisions and redrawing of borders, it is not always possible to compare figures when, e.g., we want to prepare a time series for a municipality. The changes can also affect county borders and thus also the basis for comparison there.
Population projections (prognoses)
Population by age, sex, marital status and citizenship, 1 January
Data files at the individual level that are processed and stored long-term.
2008 © Statistics Norway