Immigrants by reason for immigration

Resident

Who is regarded as a resident of Norway and where in Norway a person shall be counted as a resident, is stipulated in the Population Registration Act of 16 January 1970. The regulations to the act were last amended effective 1 October 1998.

Immigration

Event defined in the Population Register, and presented in Statistics Norway’s migration statistics.

First time immigration

First immigration to Norway performed by a foreign born.

Year of immigration

The official date of immigration in the Population Register is the date of registration, which is the date the person concerned comes to the local population registry with his documents (including the residence permit if the person is a non-Nordic citizen).

In statistics on reasons for immigration the year of immigration is taken directly from the date of registration, and not from the reference year in the published migration statistics. In case of so-called delayed notifications the reference year may be a later year than the year of registration.

Reason for immigration

The reason for the first immigration, according to the information registered in the registers of the immigration authorities and otherwise as it is possible to derive from various relevant register variables.

The variable is produced in Statistics Norway for demographic use, and does not directly reflect the slightly more legal oriented registrations of the immigration authorities. All first time immigrants with a non-Nordic citizenship who immigrated after 1989 have been assigned one of the main values Refugee, Family, Labour, Training and Other. Most of them are registered with a more specified reason for immigration. In most cases, these values reflect the values of the variable reason for decision in UDB. In case this variable does not hold any value, other UDB variables or population registration data are used.

In connection with reason for immigration the term refugee means immigrated for refugee reasons , and is not limited to e.g. Convention refugees only.

In the immigration management of today, there is a principle that all immigrants should have a decision, even if they are children without any independent reason for immigration. In such cases, children get the same value as their parents. In the actual variable for reason of immigration, however, the values Labour, Training and Family-Marriage assigned to children have been replaced by Family.

Type of family unification

The variable specifies all family immigrations, distinguishing between reunification, accompanying person and formation/extension data. The classification is mainly based on assessments of dates of immigration and marriage (when relevant) of both the immigrant and the reference person, and on registrations of that variable in the UDB data.

Asylum seekers

Refers to asylum cases or residence on humanitarian grounds.

Immigrants and Norwegian born to immigrant parents

Migration

A standard classification of reasons for immigration was prepared for the 1995 publishing. The classification of the variable reason for decision in UDB is based on this standard. However, there are more values in the UDB version, and some aspects are singled out in separate variables. The code set is different, too. The classification that has been used so far in Statistics Norway's data is a slightly adjusted version of the original UDB variable.

For other classifications, see the list of statistics in chapter 4.1.