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Weekly Bulletin issue no. 17, 1997

Income distribution statistics for households, 1995. Preliminary figures:

Norwegian households owe NOK 304,000

In 1995, every household in Norway owed an average of NOK 304,000, up nearly NOK 24,000 from the year before. Measured in constant prices, households nonetheless owed less than they did in 1990. Families with small children had the highest debts, with NOK 603,000.
At the same time, couples with children under the age of seven had the highest increase in income from 1984 to 1995, with more than 30 per cent. This is primarily attributed to lower interest rates.

With the exception of couples with small children under the age of seven, childless couples in which the oldest person was between 45 and 65 and retired couples aged 65 and up had the highest increase in disposable income from 1984 to 1995. All of these households increased their income by over 30 per cent, measured in constant prices.

More debt

The number of households carrying high debts in relation to household income grew in 1995, preliminary figures from the Income Distribution Survey show. Thirty-seven per cent of all households had debts exceeding their combined household income in 1995, and 14 per cent of these owed more than two times their income. The corresponding figures for 1994 were respectively 35 and 13 per cent.

New Statistics

Income distribution statistics for households, 1995. Preliminary figures.
Statistics are published annually in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics. More information: Vidar Pedersen, tel. +47 62 88 52 51, e-mail: vip@ssb.no or Jon Epland, tel. +47 62 88 52 37, e-mail: jep@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 17, 1997