The Local

December 30, 2013

The number of ethnic Norwegians has dropped over the past decade, with Norway’s population growth attributable solely to immigration and children born to Norwegians with an immigrant background, according to figures from Statistics Norway.

“The group without any element of immigration, either from their parents of grandparents, has declined in recent years,” Minja Dzmarija, a researcher at Statistics Norway, told Aftenposten. “This means that among ethnic Norwegians there are more who die or move abroad than those who are born or move back to Norway.”

According to her article in Samfunnsspeilet, Statistics’s Norway’s in-house magazine, the number of ethnic Norwegians has declined by 4,400 people over the past nine years, while the total population has grown from 4.6 million to 5.1 million people.

The proportion of immigrants in the country has increased from 15 percent in 2004 to 23 percent today.