To what is a transition into employment associated with an exit from poverty?

A link between lack of employment and poverty is often made implicitly, but can rarely be enumerated in any sort of satisfactory manner. We would therefore like to ask the question: to what extent does acquiring employment increase a poor household’s probability of exiting poverty? Register data from the entire resident population of Norway serves as the basis for the analysis. We distinguish between full-time and part-time employment and also include an investigation into the effect transfers have on the probability of exiting poverty,with or without a concurrent change in employment status. Norway with its generous social welfare system and well-functioning labor markets provides a unique opportunity to abstract to a certain extent from many complicating factors in investigating these questions

Initiation into crime: An analysis of Norwegian register data on five cohorts

We construct linked register data on five Norwegian birth cohorts, covering: criminal charges after age 15; family characteristics and history up to age 15; and (for males) IQ test scores. A longitudinal analysis of the risk of initiation into crime in early adulthood suggests an increased risk for the children of young and unmarried mothers and for those experiencing disruptive family events including divorce or maternal death during childhood. There is a relationship between continuity of parental employment and reduced risk, with no evidence of harm from mothers' employment. Cognitive ability remains strongly associated with reduced risk after allowing for family history and circumstances

Assimilation effects on poverty among immigrants in Norway

The percentage of poor among immigrants to Norway is much higher than the percentage among the native population so that immigrant status and ethnic origin may help to explain to some degree the continuing existence of poverty in Norway, an affluent country known for its relatively low income inequality. The purpose of this paper is to use register data to discuss the more crucial question of whether or not this rather high incidence of poverty among immigrants persists even after immigrants have been in the country for a long period, that is, after they have had the opportunity to integrate and adapt their skills to the expectations in their new country

To what extent is a transition into employment associated with an exit from poverty

Abstract: A link between lack of employment and poverty is often made implicitly, but can be difficult to enumerate in a satisfactory manner. We would therefore like to ask the question: to what extent does acquiring employment increase a poor household’s probability of exiting poverty? Register data from the entire resident population of Norway serves as the basis for this analysis, which indicates that full-time does greatly increase the probability of exiting poverty. Part-time employment also has an effect, albeit a small one. Findings with respect to transfers are compatible with certain disincentives related to employment for single mothers, although similar results cannot be found for other types of households

Universal Transfers, Tax Breaks and Fertility: Evidence from a Regional Reform in Norway

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The Labor market integration of immigrant men and women

Abstract: Out of necessity, the earliest studies of immigrants' performance in the labor market in Western countries focused solely on men. However, as the employment rates of women in Western countries rise and approach those of men, questions about the labor market adjustments of immigrant women also become increasingly relevant. Furthermore, studies of earnings assimilation have typically analyzed only those individuals actually employed (full-time) in the labor market. Hence, they are unable to provide valuable insights into the extent to which the participation rates of immigrants – men or women – increase over time in the host country. This study analyzes explicitly the extent to which non-Western immigrants – both men and women – enter the labor market in Norway

Immigrant child poverty in Scandinavia: a panel data study

Immigrant and native child poverty in Denmark, Norway and Sweden 1993 to 2001 is investigated using large sets of panel data. While native children face yearly poverty risks of less than 10 percent in all three countries and for all years investigated the increasing proportion of immigrant children with an origin in middle and low income countries have poverty risks that varies from 38 and up to as much as 58 percent. At the end of the observation period one third of the poor children in Norway have an immigrant origin, and that corresponding proportion is as high as about a half in Denmark as well as in Sweden. The strong overrepresentation of immigrant children from low and middle income countries when measured in yearly data is also found when applying a longer accounting period. We find that child poverty rates are generally high shortly after arrival to the new country, and typically decreases with years since immigration. Multivariate analysis shows that parents years since immigration and education affect risks of the number of periods in persistent poverty. While a native child is very unlikely to spend nine years in poverty, the corresponding risk for a child to a newly arrived immigrant from Turkey was found to be far from negligible. Much of the pattern is similar across the three countries but there are also some differences

Gruppering av kommuner etter folkemengde og økonomiske rammebetingelser 2003

Formålet med denne rapporten er å ordne kommunene i sammenliknbare grupper etter økonomiske rammebetingelser. Dette betyr for det første at kommunene blir ordnet etter hvilke kostnader de står overfor for å innfri minstestandarder og lovpålagte oppgaver. Disse kostnadene varierer mellom kommunene på grunn av ulike demografiske, sosiale og geografiske forhold. Men siden driften av små kommuner atskiller seg fra driften av store kommuner, har vi av sammenlikningsgrunner funnet det hensiktsmessig å la grupperingen av kommunene også være avhengig av folkemengden. Det tredje kriteriet som brukes til å gruppere kommunene er frie disponible inntekter, dvs. de inntektene som er til disposisjon når minstestandarder og lovpålagte oppgaver er dekket. Størrelsen på de frie disponible inntektene gir en antydning av kommunenes økonomiske handlefrihet. Den mest omfattende grupperingen, basert på de tre nevnte kriteriene, består av 27 grupper. I tillegg har vi skilt ut de fire største byene og de 10 kommunene med høyest frie disponible inntekter per innbygger (i hovedsak kraftkommuner) som egne grupper. Kommunegrupperingen som fremkommer er basert på data for 2003 og blir sammenliknet med en tilsvarende gruppering basert på data for 1998

Re-examining the earnings assimilatins of immigrants

Studies on the earnings assimilation of immigrants have traditionally focused exclusively on immigrants in employment. However, given evidence of immigrants' difficulties in entering and remaining in the labor market, restricting the population to those in employment may entail a selection bias. In addition, the primary variable of interest in such studies is often the duration of residence or the years since migration (YSM), which is interpreted as a proxy for potential labor market experience in the host country. The appropriateness of that proxy will, however, also depend on the extent to which immigrants are able to quickly enter and remain in the labor market. This study thus re-examines evidence on the earnings assimilation of immigrants in light of selection into the labor market and with better information on actual labor market experience in the host country. The findings suggest that a major revision of previous conclusions about the earnings assimilation of immigrants in Norway may be in order

New Perspectives on the Integration of Immigrants

Norway has only recently started to experience firsthand the challenges, difficulties, and benefits associated with a large and expanding immigrant population. In facing these issues today, Norway has some huge advantages over traditional immigrant countries, such as the US. Firstly, Norway can try to glean valuable insights from decades of social science research on the topic of immigration and can thus hope to learn from the previous experiences of other countries with a longer tradition of immigration. Secondly, Norway is itself in many ways in an unprecedented position to document, monitor and analyze the challenges, difficulties and benefits of immigration while they are taking place. This is largely due to a vast infrastructure of high-quality micro-data available on many aspects of economic and social life generally deemed relevant and valuable in the social sciences and for policymaking, both in Norway and elsewhere. Thus, the relatively new experiences with immigration and immigrants in Norway provide unique opportunities both for the re-evaluation of previous research and for suggesting new avenues of inquiry. In this sense, Norwegian social science and the Norwegian experience with immigration can also provide knowledge and insights of potential value for many other countries, even those with much longer histories of immigration