Emigration among immigrants in Norway -

In this report we have analyzed factors affecting emigration of immigrants from Norway, as well as provided some descriptions of how emigration varies between different groups of immigrants in the entire and various parts of the country. On the basis of micro data we have analyzed how the emigration is influenced by various factors such as gender, age, length of residence, level of education and labor force attachment, as well as family size and family composition. In addition to emigration we have analyzed the likelihood of moving inside Norway or remain settled in the region.

Important issues have been as follows: What is driving the emigration of immigrants from Norway? Which groups of immigrants emigrate? Is it immigrants that are well integrated into the society, as measured by labor force participation and education, or is it the least integrated immigrants who emigrate? Does it matter whether the immigrants have family in Norway or not? And what is the significance of reason for immigration for emigration? How can regional differences in centrality and by county explain different emigration from different parts of Norway, and the likelihood of alternative to remain in a region or to move domestically to another region in Norway?

Important findings include that male immigrants are more likely to emigrate than female, that younger immigrants of working age have a higher probability to emigrate than middle-aged and older immigrants, and that the immigrants' emigration probability falls with the length of residency. These results apply to all centralities (distance to metropolitan areas), and different methods have produced consistent results. Several of the results are also consistent with tentative findings given in Skjerpen, Stambøl and Tønnessen (2015).

Immigrants with education as reason for immigration show the highest emigration probability, followed by Nordic immigrants and labor immigrants, while immigrants with family and especially those with refugee as reason for immigration show low likelihood of emigrating. Migration frequencies domestically are mostly lower than emigration frequencies, but refugees stand out with a higher tendency to move domestically than to emigrate.

Measured by educational level, it is consistently immigrants with unspecified education that show the highest emigration probability followed by those with long tertiary education, while immigrants with compulsory and secondary education are those who are the least likely to emigrate.

With regard to labor market status, it is immigrants who are outside the labor force and the educational system who are most likely to emigrate, followed by immigrants who have been registered as unemployed. In the least central municipalities there are, however, immigrants who were attending education who show the highest emigration. Immigrants who were registered as employed are those who are the least likely to emigrate.

Against the background of immigrants' family size and family composition, it is registered unaccompanied immigrants in “one-person families” that show the highest mobility, be it both out of the country as well as between regions. There is a tendency that the mobility decreases with the immigrants’ family size. It is more likely to emigrate among immigrants living in immigrant families with only immigrants than among immigrants who also have non-immigrant family members, like non-immigrant spouse and/or children born in Norway of immigrant parents. This applies to all immigrants with an exception for refugees. There is also a tendency for slightly higher out-migration frequencies from counties among immigrants who come from families with only immigrants. We can thus conclude that higher proportion of non-immigrants in the family is associated with reduced mobility of families with immigrants, both considering emigration as well as regarding domestic relocation.

All immigrant groups show the highest tendency to emigrate from the most central municipalities. Education and labor immigrants have also high emigration rates from less central municipalities, and Nordic immigrants show high emigration from the least central municipalities. All immigrant groups show the highest domestic relocation tendency from the less and least central municipalities, especially among refugees, while the tendency to relocate domestically is lowest from the most central municipalities. It is worth noting that when labor immigrants in the Southwest regions of Norway decide to move, the likelihood is much higher that they choose to emigrate rather than move to another region in Norway.