The following three sub-populations are compared:

  1. Those who arrived in Norway as immigrants from Eastern Europe outside the EU, Asia, Africa and South and Central America.
  2. Those born in Norway to immigrant parents with a background from the aforementioned world regions.
  3. People with a non-immigrant background (i.e. the majority population).

The report is based on register statistics for the 4th quarter of 2020.

The immigrant group in this report do not represent the Norwegian-born´s immigrant parents,but consists of immigrants at the same age as the Norwegian-born to immigrant parents. Hence, we intend to describe the significance of being born in Norway by immigrant parents as opposed to immigrate oneself. We do consequently not describe differences among generations.

There has been a certain decrease in the share of actives within all three population groups from 2019 to 2020. Norwegian-born to immigrant parents had the largest decrease, 0.9 percentage points, while the decrease among immigrants and the majority was 0.6 and 0.5 percentage points respectively. This trend has, however, not changed the disparities in activity level between the three population groups considerably. In 2020 Norwegian-born to immigrant parents had a difference compared to the majority at 4.1 percentage points, while the corresponding difference among immigrants was 19.1 percentage points.

The decrease in the share of actives is strongest among those with a compulsory education only within all three population groups.

When looking at the active statuses separately, those in employment aged 20-39 years was the only group who experienced a decrease since 2019. The share of those participating in education has, however, increased within all three groups, and this increase was stronger among females then males. Hence, the decrease in the share of actives in total was weaker among women than men within all three population groups.

The two groups with an immigrant-background had at the end of 2019 larger shares than the majority employed within the industries that were especially hit by the corona-crises in 2020. A share of 29 per cent of the employed immigrants worked within those industries put together in November 2019. The corresponding share among the Norwegian born to immigrant parents was 22 per cent and within the majority, 11 per cent.

The two groups with an immigrant-background also had the lowest average wages. In 2020 Norwegian-born with immigrant parents earned 6 per cent less than the majority population, while the immigrants earned 11 per cent less. From 2018 to 2020 the groups with an immigrant background had, on the contrary, the strongest increase in the average wages. Thus, the wage gap in relation to the majority has been reduced.

The report also describes the group of registered unemployed at the end of March 2020. Among those unemployed, the group without immigrant-background had a share of 84.6 per cent actives in November the same year, while the Norwegian born to immigrant parents and immigrants had 79.4 and 66.5 per cent actives respectively. These three mentioned shares were 3 -5 percentage points lower than the shares of actives in the corresponding population groups in total.