Norway best at providing women with work

integration womenWoman looking at Integration. Photo: SCANPIX

Norway best in class to provide work for refugee women

Norway has fared far better than Denmark and Sweden in including refugee women and refugees with low education in working life, according to report.


The Nordic Council of Ministers are behind the report «Nordic integration and settlement policies for refugees» (pdf).  Researchers from all the Scandinavian countries have studied the development of refugees and their family members, who have participated in the countries’ various introductory programs. The figures include 250,000 persons in the period from 2008 to 2016.

Best on employment

“The most important finding, from a Norwegian perspective, is that Norway succeeds in getting refugee women and refugees with low education into the workplace, compared to Sweden and Denmark,” co-author and researcher at Oslo Met, Kristian Rose Tronstad, tells FriFagbevegelse.

Denmark is best at getting refugees to work quickly, according to the report. Norway has, however, a better employment rate than both Sweden and notably Denmark over time. The gap between women and men participating in working life is also far lower in Norway than in the other Nordic countries.

“Although Norway is the best in class, that, however, isn’t to say that the results are very good,” Tronstad emphasises.

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Room for improvement

“We can’t get on our high horse and boast that we are succeeding. There is still great potential for improvement. Integration is not exactly hunky-dory,” the researcher concludes.

More than 27,000 refugees and asylum seekers participated in the introduction programs last year, according to figures from Statistics Norway and Imdi. Of the 8,300 who completed them last year, 55 per cent went on to work or education. Between 60 and 70 per cent are working or learning, one to five years after they have completed the introductory programs.

Statistics

Individual characteristics of refugees and family migrants to refugees in Norway, by year of settlement 
  2008–2009 2010-2111 2012-2113 2014-2115 2016 Total
Women  48.5 45.6 48.2 38.7 31.9 41.9
Age (years)  30 28.8 29.1 29.1 29 29.2
Age-group 
20–25  25.2 29.1 30.5 32.8 33.2 30.6
26–35  46.8 46.2 46.1 44.5 43.6 45.3
36–45  21.5 18.7 18.9 17.1 18.1 18.6
46–55  6.4 5.9 4.6 5.7 5.1 5.5
Married  43.2 39.1 42.4 43.4 47 43.1
Children 41.7 27.6 29 23.5 22.2 27.4
Country of birth 
Afghanistan  9.7 12.6 7.6 4.9 3.1 7.2
Eritrea  17.2 27 23.1 29.3 30.4 26
Iraq  14.3 7 3.1 1.3 1.3 4.7
Iran  2.9 5.3 5.7 2.9 1.5 3.6
Somalia  14.1 21 30.5 18.7 4.8 17.7
Syria  0.8 0.5 4.8 24.7 43.8 16.8
Other  41.1 26.7 25.3 18.1 15 24
Education 
Primary education  50.8 47.6 48.3 39.2 33.4 43.1
Secondary education  6.9 11.7 8.2 3 2.4 6
Tertiary education  18.9 15.4 13.7 11.9 11.8 14
Missing values  23.4 25.4 29.9 45.9 52.3 37
Centrality
Metropolitan area  14.5 12.2 11.4 7.7 8.7 10.5
Other large cities  21.2 17.3 15.2 13.3 16.5 16.3
Cities  24.6 24 21.8 20.6 21 22.1
Towns  24 24.2 27.4 28.7 25.1 26.2
Rural/remote 15.7 22.3 24.2 29.7 28.6 24.9
Reason for being granted a residence permit 
Family reunification  19.2 13.5 13.2 12.5 12.6 13.9
Convention refugee  64.3 71.7 71 74.5 75.4 71.9
Subsidiary protection  1.1 0.8 1.7 0.8 0.5 1
UN Quota status  15.3 14 14.1 12.2 11.5 13.2
Other  0 0 0 0 0 0
Participants (N)  7,543 8,655 9,014 12,691 9,889 47,792

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