Key Findings
Best practice (100% score)
Electoral rights and political liberties
Security of employment and rights associated with labour market access
Favourable
Rights associated with family reunion and long-term residence
Policies for political participation, especially implementation policies
Unfavourable
Eligibility for access to nationality
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Overview
Norway's migration policies are partly aligned to the EU through its membership of the European Economic Area, the Schengen Agreement on free movement and the Dublin Convention on asylum. Norway also has much in common with its Nordic peers: dynamic labour markets, strong commitments to humanitarian protection and equal social rights for foreigners. Non-EU migrants tend to arrive as family members of migrant workers, high-skilled workers and asylum seekers, though the latter continues to decline. The employment rate for migrants from outside the EU is 18.6 percentage points less than for Norwegians. Recent legislation focused on comprehensive introduction programmes, curbing forced marriages, reforming nationality law and bolstering antidiscrimination and equality laws.
Non-EU nationals (hereafter migrants) in Norway have favourable opportunities for political participation that are the second best of the 28 MIPEX countries, after SE. Norway ranks third, after SE and BE, on long-term residence. Family reunion and labour market access policies are slightly favourable to migrant integration. Anti-discrimination laws score just over halfway to best practice, whilst access to nationality is Norway's clear area of weakness.
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Integration Policy Timeline
12/2005
State firms required to interview one job-seeker of immigrant origin for each vacancy
01/2006
Norwegian Nationality Act entered into force
01/2006
Anti-discrimination Act entered into force
01/2006
Alarm over ‘wife-dumping' where Pakistani men divorce wives before they are eligible for autonomous residence permits
10/2006
Plan of action for integration and social inclusion of the immigrant population
02/2007
Immigration Act amended on marriage and family reunion to combat forced marriages
02/2007
Progress Party (2nd largest party) calls for denial of benefits to immigrants who do not learn Norwegian and a ban on more living in Oslo
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Migrant Profile
