Earned income main source of income among immigrants

Earned income is the most important means of support for most immigrant families living in Norway. Nevertheless, big differences exist among the various groups of immigrants. At the bottom are immigrant families from Eastern Europe, in which earned income accounts for 61 per cent of a family's total income. This same figures for families from Western Europe is 79 per cent. In Norwegian families earned income makes up 72 per cent of all income.

In immigrant families from Asia, Africa, Central and South America and Turkey (hereafter referred to as the Third World) earned income accounted on average for 65 per cent of the family's overall income.

Big differences in wages

Immigrant families from Western Europe, North America and Oceania have average wage incomes far above the wage income of families from Eastern Europe and the Third World. For example, the average wage income of families from Britain and the Netherlands was NOK 262,400 and NOK 246,000 respectively in 1996. In comparison, the wage income of Pakistani and Vietnamese families was NOK 128,000 and NOK 121,600. In Norwegian families wage income made up an average of NOK 202,100 in 1996.

Transfers are important to many immigrants

Various public transfers are of great importance to the overall income of families. This is particularly true of immigrant families from Eastern Europe and the Third World. Both of the immigrant groups receive about one-third of their income in the form of transfers. Among Norwegian families these sources of income account for 22 per cent of all income. Immigrants from Nordic countries and other Western European countries receive the smallest public transfers. For these groups transfers make up 17 and 15 per cent respectively of their income.

New Statistics
Income statistics, 1996. Immigrants.
The statistics are published annually in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics. For more information, contact: mads.ivar.kirkeberg@ssb.no, tel. +47 62 88 52 45.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 38, 1998