SSB: Immigrant born has much lower income

Large income gap among Norwegians with immigrant parents

Norwegian born persons with immigrant parents generally has a lower income than their peers without immigrant background, figures from Statistics Norway show.

Statistics Norway (SSB) has scrutinized the group of Norwegian born who has immigrant parents and were born between 1977 and 1986. They were between 30 and 39 years old in 2016. These are among the age groups that are most active in the labour market.

In 2016, Norwegian born with immigrant parents had 11 per cent lower average occupational income than their peers without immigrant background.

At the same time, Norwegian born to immigrant parents received more in different types of benefits. The total funds received by this group were 10 per cent above the norm.

53 per cent have two incomes

The figures further show that 22 per cent of the women with Pakistani origin in the age group 30 to 39 are completely unemployed, while the corresponding group was at a mere 9 per cent.

In households with a background from Turkey, Pakistan and Morocco, only 53 per cent have two sources of income, compared to 82 per cent in households without immigrant backgrounds.

Norwegian born with the largest household income, those with backgrounds from countries such as Vietnam, Sri Lanka and India, the corresponding share is 76 per cent.

One in five women without income

Income varies considerably when one groups according to the parents’ background.

The median income of Norwegian born with Indian background was NOK 553,000 in 2016. This is 13 per cent higher than those with non-immigrant backgrounds, and 22 per cent above the level of other relatively young people with immigrant parents.

Young people with parents from Sri Lanka, Poland and Vietnam also have incomes that is above the level of those without immigrant background.

Among Norwegian-born women who have the lowest professional income, the Turkish stand out as sore thumbs. These women earned a mere NOK 184,000 in 2016. The explanation is that there are only two out of three women in this group who have paid employment. This also applies to a relatively large proportion of women with backgrounds from Macedonia and Pakistan, according to Statistics Norway.

In total, every fifth Norwegian born woman with immigrant parents is completely unemployed. This proportion is twice as high compared to the group without immigrant parents.

3 per cent of the population

Norwegian born with immigrant parents constitutes an increasing proportion of the population in Norway. According to Statistics Norway’s population statistics, this group at the beginning of 2017 constituted nearly 160,000 persons, or 3 per cent of the Norwegian population. According to SSB, this group is expected to increase significantly in the coming years, both in number and as a proportion of the population.

More than six out of ten in this group have parents who immigrated from one of the four countries of Pakistan, India, Morocco and Turkey. Additionally there are some who have parents who came as refugees later on, primarily from Vietnam, but also from Chile and Sri Lanka.

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today