Immigrants

In 2019, Statistics Norway established a monitor to be able to follow the group of Norwegian-born with immigrant parents. This report is a continuation of the monitor, and provides an analysis of this group with the themes of demography, education, participation in the labor market and household income.

The report provides a descriptive analysis of immigration to Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and the situation for immigrants and their descendants living there. Furthermore, it looks at how immigrants and descendants are integrated into society, with a focus on their participation in education and working life.

From 1990 to 2022, family immigration was the most common reason for immigration among non-Nordic citizens, accounting for 35 percent of all immigration from outside the Nordic countries. Family immigration includes those who come to either reunite with family or establish a family.

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.

Norway has good statistics on statelessness but the statistics on this are very incomplete for most countries. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has taken an initiative to improve the statistics on statelessness, as well as for the other main target groups of the High Commissioner, namely refugees and internally displaced persons. Statistics Norway (SSB) has actively contributed to this effort.

At the beginning of 2024, there were just over 1600 stateless persons in Norway. This marks a halving from 2011 and 2018 when the number was at its highest recorded level. Most of the stateless individuals come from Palestine and Syria.

Norway has good data on statelessness in the National Population Register. At the turn of the year, 1,626 stateless persons lived in Norway, but the number varies significantly from year to year. This variation is due to fluctuating immigration of stateless individuals and the transition to Norwegian citizenship. Stateless individuals can become Norwegian citizens after three years. Most stateless individuals in Norway arrived as transfer refugees or asylum seekers, many of them with Palestinian background. In addition, a few stateless individuals are born in the country each year. The main problem for stateless persons living in Norway is lack of a passport.

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.

Norway has experienced a pronounced growth in immigration, especially after the EU enlargement in 2004. Immigrant women make up an increasingly large proportion of the population In Norway. At the beginning of 2023, there were 428 100 immigrant women, which is 16 per cent of all resident women.