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STATISTICS

People with foreign backgrounds in Norway now number over one million

Latest data from Norway’s official statistics agency shows that the immigrants and the children of immigrants now count for over one million people in the Nordic nation.

People with foreign backgrounds in Norway now number over one million
People born abroad or with foreign parents now number over one million in Norway. Photo by Anastasiya Dalenka on Unsplash

The two groups – immigrants and Norwegian-born people whose parents are both immigrants – numbered a total of 1,025,000 persons at the beginning of 2022. That represents the first time the figure has reached seven digits, according to Statistics Norway (SSB).

The 819,400 immigrants that form part of that total represent 15.1 percent of Norway’s population, SSB writes.

The data also show that 19,300 more immigrants and Norwegian-born people with immigrant parents lived in Norway on January 1st this year compared to the year before.

The increase in 2021 is bigger than the increase in 2020, when Covid-19 restrictions resulted in the lowest increase in immigrants settled in Norway since 2002.

People with Polish nationality formed the largest group when the statistics are broken down by individual country. 105,500 people with immigrant background in Poland lived in Norway at the beginning of this year. The next-largest group, Lithuanians, number 42,000.

Third and fourth-largest groups by nationality were Swedes and Syrians with 35,900 and 34,400 respectively.

In capital city Oslo, the number of residents with immigrant background had increased by 900 over the 12 months leading up to January 1st this year, giving a total of 177,900 foreign or foreign-heritage residents, 25.4 percent of the city’s population.

The Oslo figure generally increases more than this each year, with an increase of between 2,400 and 8,900 each year from 2010 onwards, not including 2020. The number has been trending downwards since 2015.

The Norwegian municipality with largest increase in the number of immigrant residents was Lillestrøm, with 1,500 or a 1.2 percent increase, giving an overall proportion of 22 percent of the municipality’s population.

Norwegian-born people (who may not have Norwegian citizenship) whose parents are immigrants comprised 205,800 or 3.8 percent of the population at the turn of the year. The group increased by 8,000 or 4 percent in number over the preceding twelve months – the smallest increase since 2011.

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BREXIT

How has the number of Brits in the Nordics changed since Brexit?

The UK leaving the European Union has been a headache for many British people living in Scandinavian countries. Here's what the data tells us.

How has the number of Brits in the Nordics changed since Brexit?

There’s been a marked difference in how the number of British citizens in the official statistics has changed since Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016, with Denmark seeing a more or less steady increase and sharp falls in both Norway and Sweden.

The number of British citizens registered as living in Sweden has fallen from a peak of 19,965 in 2018 to just 14,158 in 2022.

Norway has seen a comparable, if slightly later fall, from a peak of 17,208 in 2020 to 15,683 in 2023.

Denmark, on the other hand, has seen the number of British residents fall much less dramatically, dropping from a peak of 19,086 in 2019 to 17,888 in the at the start of July this year.  

So has there been a mass exodus of Brits from Sweden and Norway?

It doesn’t look like it. 

Nearly 4,495 British people gained Swedish citizenship in 2019, and a further 2,150 gained it in 2020, with all of them then no longer classed as UK citizens in the official data, which only includes people who don’t also have Swedish citizenship.

Norway changed its laws at the start of 2020 to allow dual citizenship, with 1,600 British citizens becoming Norwegian in 2021 and a further 800 in 2022.

As it take nine years of residency to become a citizen in Denmark, the country has not seen this effect to the same extent. The number of British people getting citizenship rose from well under a hundred a year before the Brexit vote in 2016 to a peak of 692 in 2020, after which it slowly dropped off, with 546 getting citizenship in 2020 and 327 in 2021. 

How do the stats look for people of British origin? 

If you look at country of origin rather than current citizenship, the number of British people living in all three countries has been climbing steadily, with Sweden seeing the greatest growth as well as the highest overall numbers. 

The number of British-born people living in Sweden has risen from 23,341 in 2013 to 32,575 in 2022, an increase of more than 40 percent. 

Denmark has also seen a significant increase in the number of British-born residents, with the number rising 27 percent from 14,150 in 2013 to 18,098 in 2023. 

The smallest increase in the number of British-born residents has happened in Norway, where the number has risen just 16 percent from 18,634 in 2013 to 21,663 in 2023.

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