At the beginning of 2021, there will be 42 000 resettlement refugees in Norway. In this report, we provide a demographic description of this group of refugees, their participation and results in education, their connection to the labour market and an overview of their income and living conditions. As a proportion, resettlement refugees make up 16 per cent of all those who have come to Norway with a refugee background, and more than half of them come from one of the countries Syria, Iran, Vietnam or Iraq. Since 2014, six out of ten resettlement refugees who have come to Norway from Syria.

Nearly half of the resettlement refugees are under the age of 18 when they arrive in the country, and the proportion of young people is increasing. The gender distribution has taken off, I also think has changed over time, and although overall there are most men, the majority of those who have reached adulthood after 2009 have been women. As with other refugees, resettlement refugees are residing throughout the country. They live to a somewhat greater extent in the metropolitan area than the population in general, but not to the same extent as immigrants in general and other refugees.

About half of the resettlement refugees have primary school as the highest level of education achieved, while close to a quarter have upper secondary school level and a quarter have a university or college degree. This is roughly in line with other refugee groups, but far lower levels of education than among immigrants in general and in the population as a whole. There are also smaller gender differences in the level of education among resettlement refugees than there are in the population.

The labour market affiliation among resettlement refugees varies greatly, and factors such as residence time, country background, gender, age and place of residence affect the affiliation. In the fourth quarter of 2019, a total of two out of three resettlement refugees between the ages of 15 and 66 were in work or education / introduction scheme, and this proportion has been virtually unchanged in recent years. The proportion is about the same as for all refugees as a whole, but a good deal less than for all immigrants as a whole, and considerably less than for the entire population.

Just under half (46 per cent) of all resettlement refugees in Norway were employed in the fourth quarter of 2019, and the proportion is somewhat higher among men (49 per cent) than among women (42 per cent). We also see that resettlement refugees from countries with a relatively long average period of residence have a significantly higher proportion of employed than those who come from countries with a shorter period of residence. The largest employment is among the transfer refugees from Myanmar with close to 70 per cent, and the lowest is among those from Syria with 15 per cent.

The resettlement refugees have a low income level, both when we compare with the entire population and all immigrants. However, there is little that separates resettlement refugees from all refugees taken as a whole. While the transfer refugees have a median income corresponding to 56 per cent of the entire population's income level, persons in refugee households have a median income corresponding to 62 per cent of the population. Migrant refugees with the longest period of residence such as from Vietnam also has the highest incomes, both when we look at the average total household income and occupational income.

People living in households where the main income earner is a transfer refugee have a significantly larger share with persistent low income (46 per cent), compared with the entire population (10 per cent) and all immigrants (29 per cent). However, there is little that separates resettlement refugees from all persons with a refugee background, where 45 per cent have persistent low income.