Population

This report presents results from Statistics Norway's survey of the population's attitudes towards immigrants and immigration, which was carried out in January-February 2024.

Immigrants and their Norwegian-born children are highly heterogeneous and stand for an increasingly significant proportion of the Norwegian population. This publication presents a description of who they are and how they are doing.

Unaccompanied minor refugees are children and young people who arrived in Norway before turning 18 without their parents or anyone with parental responsibility for them, and who applied for asylum and were granted residence in Norway on this basis.

Naturalisation may be interpreted as an indication of belonging and integration into the Norwegian society. There were 423 300 such naturalisations during the period we look at in this report, 1977 to 2021.

Resettlement refugees are people who have fled their home country and who have been transferred to a third country. At the beginning of 2023, there will be over 48 000 resettlement refugees in Norway. In this report, we provide a demographic description of this group of refugees, their participation and results in education, their connection to the labor market and an overview of their income and living conditions.

Attitudes towards immigrants and immigration have become increasingly positive during the last years, and the results from this year’s survey shows this continuing trend.

We present a probabilistic forecast for the immigrant population of Norway and their Norwegian-born children (“second generation”) broken down by age, sex, and three types of country background: 1. West European countries plus the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand; 2. East European countries that are members of the European Union; 3. other countries.

Cash-for care policies are contested in many contexts, as they represent an incentive for childrearing over work that may reduce labour market participation, especially among immigrant women.

Family immigration rose significantly in 2021 compared to the previous year. However, the number of family immigrations did not rise as much as other types of immigration. Fewer persons came to establish family with persons without immigrant background compared to before the pandemic.

Labour immigrants add important expertise to Norwegian society and help to cover labour shortages. Norway has historically had labour immigration from far back in time. We take a closer look at labour immigrants from countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA) as well as their family members in this report.

Unaccompanied minor refugees are children and young people who arrived in Norway before turning 18 without their parents or anyone with parental responsibility for them, and who applied for asylum and were granted residence in Norway on this basis.

Using Norwegian register data on migrant-background individuals born 1985 to 2001 who were either native born or who immigrated as children or teens, in combination with data from the World Marriage Database, we investigate how residential partner markets and marriage behavior in countries of origin shape partner choice and choice of union type in Norway