Differences in education among immigrants

OECD recently published Trends in International Migration where the educational attainment among foreigners is highlighted. In Norway, 40 per cent of all foreign citizens have attained tertiary level of education. Questions were raised in several educational environments due to this high portion of well-educated foreigners, which is different from statistics at a national level describing the educational level among immigrants. Foreigners in Norway were not only well-educated, but also on top considering all OECD-countries. Different definitions used to set the immigrant population and different methods of sampling are causing this discrepancy.

OECD has only considered the foreign citizens resident in Norway, whereas Statistics Norway also includes immigrants with Norwegian citizenships¹. The western immigrants usually hold a high educational level, but only rarely change their citizenship. For non-western immigrants it is opposite - the educational attainment is lower and they become Norwegian citizens more often. Also, since 1999². there has not been a systematic registration of educational level for persons migrating to Norway. Immigrants to Norway after 1999 will quite often have an "unknown" attained level of education.

EUs sample survey Labour Force Survey is used as a source in the OECD publication. Statistics Norway presents individually based statistics on the population's highest level of education.

Half as many

In a similar table from the register on the population's highest level of education, the attained level of education among foreigners will show differently than the OECD publication. Only 21.4 per cent of the foreign citizens have attained tertiary level. More than 135 000 residents in Norway aged 25-64 years in 2004 were foreign citizens, and more than 45 per cent of them are registered by "unknown" attained level of education. This high portion is due to the lack of systematic registration of educational level for persons migrating to Norway after 1999. The portion of 21.4 per cent must be regarded as an absolute minimum as the number of "unknown" cannot be distributed by level of education. If considering only foreigners to whom the educational attainment is known, table 1 shows that 39 per cent of foreign citizens in Norway have attained tertiary level.

Also, there are large differences between western and non-western countries. More than 40 per cent of foreign citizens from North America and Oceania hold a tertiary education, but only 8 per cent among African citizens. A larger portion of "unknown" is found among non-western citizens. This may be explained by the fact that non-western citizens have settled in Norway in larger numbers than western citizens.

Using citizenship as a measure of the immigrant population in Norway has its weaknesses. As mentioned, different immigrant backgrounds choose different patterns in becoming Norwegian citizens. This pattern results in a higher portion of foreign citizens having achieved tertiary level of education, rather than using immigrant background.

Information about the educational attainment among immigrants in Norway is usually based on the register on the population's highest level of education considering immigrant category and country background, not citizenship as shown above. The portion of having attained tertiary level of education does not depend on the use of immigrant category or citizenship. Large differences appear by those with "unknown" attained level of education, and by the fact that non-western immigrants become Norwegian citizens more often than western immigrants. The portion with attained tertiary level of education is doubled for those with an Asian or African immigrant background than those with a similar citizenship. Again, these portions must be regarded as minimum as the portion with unknown level of education is not distributed by level of education.