Naturalisations, 2002

The decline among Bosnians and Yugoslavians was mainly due to the high figures of naturalizations from these citizen groups in 2001. Despite the decline, Bosnians was still the largest group with 1200 granted Norwegian citizenships in 2002. The other major groups in 2002 were previous Pakistanis counting more than 800 naturalizations, Yugoslavs with about 600 and Somalis with about 550. These figures should be seen in connection with the actual number of people from each of these groups living in Norway at the time, and who has the right to change the citizenship. As a main rule today, the person should be resident in Norway for 7 years. Those married to a Norwegian citizen only have to live in Norway 4 years.

As for the Bosnians and Yugoslavs there was also a major decline in naturalizations among previous Vietnamese and Somalis. The highest increase from 2001 until 2002 was among previous Pakistanis, where the numbers of naturalizations were almost doubled. Other groups with a significant increase in both relative and absolute figures, were previous citizens from Russia, Turkey, Iraq and Chile. It is important to notice that the changes from one year to another often vary due to accidental circumstances, for example variations in the proceedings to determine each case or changes in attitudes. Because of such circumstances, the development should be studied in a longer perspective of time.

Most non-western citizens have been granted Norwegian citizenship

Since 1977 - which is the first year we have statistics on naturalizations - and until 2002, there have been a clear increase in naturalizations among previous non-western citizens. In the same period, there has been a decline among those with previous western citizenship. On average from 1977 until 1982, about 40 per cent of those naturalized had non-western origin. As for the years 1983 until 1990 the average proportion of non-western citizens increased to about 80 per cent. In 2002 the percentage of non-western citizens was more than 90. The largest groups in absolute figures from 1977 until 2002 were previous citizens from Pakistan (15 000), Vietnam (13 000), Yugoslavia (8 900) and Turkey (7 800).

The increase in naturalizations among previous non-western citizens is mainly due to the changes in the international migration pattern that have found place since the 1970s. Since the end of the 1970s, there has been an increase of immigrants from non-western countries to Norway. For non-western immigrants, and then especially refugees, many rights and possibilities follow a Norwegian citizenship. Immigrants from western countries have fewer reasons for changing their citizenship. Most of them already have the same rights as Norwegian citizens, and many of them do not intend to stay permanently in Norway.

Most of the new citizens were between 20-66 years

In 2002, 62 per cent of those who became naturalized were between 20-66 years. This is almost the same percentage as this age group in the entire Norwegian population. On the other hand, the proportion of people older than 66 years where much lower compared with that of the Norwegian population. For previous Swedish citizens the proportion of people aged 20-66 years was as low as 22 per cent, while it for Moroccans where almost 80 per cent.

Slightly more women than men

About 55 per cent of those who were granted Norwegian citizenship in 2002 were women. From the Philippines, China, Thailand and Poland there were three times more women than men. Turkish and Somalis were the major groups with the lowest percentage of women. This is the same tendency as for each of these groups as a total in Norway 1.1.2002, with the exception of the Chinese population, where there where slightly more women than men.

Comments

About 850 of the 9 000 who were naturalized in 2002 were children born in Norway. In most of these cases their father was a Norwegian citizen and the mother a foreign citizen. At birth they where automatically given the mother's citizenship, but it was changed later.

Tables:

• Table 1 Naturalizations, by sex, age and previous citizenship. 2002
• Table 2 Naturalizations by previous citizenship. 1977-2002
• Table 3 Naturalizations, by county. 1977-2002
• Table 4 Naturalizations, by selected previous citizenship and age groups. 2002
• Table 5 Naturalizations. 1977-2002
• Table 6 Naturalizations, by country. 2002