Migration to and from the city og districts in Oslo

The purpose of this report is to explore how the flows of migrants to and from the capital of Oslo are distributed by city districts in Oslo, and how the migration flows between these have developed in the period of 1999-2010. To be able to make a good population projection of the city districts in Oslo, it is important to describe the development of the migration patterns, but also investigate the stability in the migration patterns by gender and age.

The results indicate a high propensity to migrate both to and from the capital area, with a further increase of the migration intensity across the city districts. This is in accordance with migration theories, expecting the migration intensity to be inversely proportional with the distance of migration.

The strongest migration propensity is found to and from the inner city of Oslo, where in-migrants partly enter from the surrounding county of Akershus, but mostly from other regions in Norway and from abroad. Furthermore, there are higher mobility flows from the inner city of Oslo toward the suburban parts of the city compared to the opposite mobility flows. This is due to the age structure of the population, where the inner city experiences a strong inflow of migrants in their twenties, where the majority rent rather than buy their dwellings. Out-migration from the inner city takes place when the people have become a bit older and establish their own families, including children that represent a considerable share of the out-migration from the inner city toward the suburban parts of the city. Out-migration from the suburban parts of Oslo mostly ends up in the neighbour county of Akershus, that generally has positive migration balance with Oslo.

Immigration has had increasing importance for in-migration to the capital since the turn of millennium. This is due to increased net immigration of persons from EU-countries both in Western and Eastern Europe. In addition, persons from other parts of the world still contribute considerably to a surplus of immigrants to Oslo, but also through their internal migration in Norway, especially to the eastern and southern city districts, which mostly experience a net out-migration of persons without immigration background.

The migration pattern for each city district is generally very stable, especially by gender and age. The analysis does, however, indicate a somewhat lower stability in migration frequencies measured as the number of migrants per thousand persons of the mean population and in the distribution of in-migrants by city districts.

However, if over- or underestimation of the tendency to out-migrate corresponds to changes in the in-migration per thousand inhabitants, the projection of migration will still produce reasonable estimates of the migration balances. The study has shown patterns that could indicate such relationship, partly by a positive relationship between the tendency to out-migrate and in-migrate measured as the number of migrants per thousand persons of the mean population. Changes in the net supply of apartments and in the living density of the inhabitants could, however, have some impact on the positive relationship between gross in- and out-migration.