Minister of Labour and Social Inclusion Kjersti Stenseng (Norwegian Labour Party) wants immigrant women to learn Norwegian while they work.
The message from the government’s new integration strategy is optimistic. The statistics paint a very different picture.
The gap that does not disappear
65 per cent of immigrant women were in employment in 2025. Among immigrant men, the proportion was 70 per cent, according to Statistics Norway (SSB).
The gap is even more pronounced in working hours. 64 per cent of employed women worked full-time. Among men, the proportion was 83 per cent.
By comparison, the gender gap in the rest of the population is far smaller. There, the difference is 4 percentage points in employment and 15 in full-time employment.
The Norwegian Directorate of Integration and Diversity’s (IMDi) own indicator report shows the same pattern year after year. In 2023, 72 per cent of immigrant men were employed, compared with 64 per cent of women.
Somalia and Pakistan furthest behind
The differences are greatest for women from countries outside Europe. Immigrants from Somalia had an overall employment rate of only 49 per cent, according to SSB.
Figures commissioned from SSB by the Progress Party show an even clearer gender divide. Among Pakistani immigrants, 55.1 per cent of men were in employment. Only 25 per cent of women were in full employment.
IMDi itself writes that the gender differences even out with length of residence. However, this applies only to immigrants from Western countries. For women from Asia and Africa, low employment persists for much longer.
A woman’s place is at home, they say themselves
Susana Biamon, general manager of Norwegian People’s Aid OASEN, was present when Stenseng visited the integration programme at Mortensrud this week. She herself explains why many of the women never enter employment.
– In many countries, it is the case that the woman is supposed to stay at home and the man is supposed to go out to work. He is the one who receives support to get into employment, she tells Dagsavisen.
The same pattern has been documented far more extensively elsewhere. Senior Police Officer Kim Anne-Marie Hiorth has worked for eleven years with vulnerable minority women in Oslo.
– I have countless stories of people living under such strict social control that they do not have a single krone in their purse, she tells Human Rights Service.
Hiorth tells of a woman who was married off at the age of 17. The woman lived for more than 20 years without her own bank card and without any money of her own.
When Swedish employment advisers helped the men
In Sweden, the television channel SVT revealed earlier this year how far this can go. Journalists tested 100 offices in the state employment programme Rusta och matcha using hidden cameras.
At 33 of the offices, advisers said they were willing to help a man prevent his wife from working. Several promised to turn a blind eye to undeclared work or refrain from reporting illegal trips abroad.
There has been no corresponding Norwegian investigation. Nevertheless, the mechanism that Biamon and Hiorth describe in Norway is the same as the one Swedish employment advisers were exposed as facilitating.
The bill: Nearly NOK 60 billion a year
Low employment among immigrants comes at a price. An SSB analysis commissioned by the Progress Party calculates the annual loss at NOK 58.8 billion.
Nettavisen has previously reported calculations arriving at around NOK 60 billion annually, based on the same premise. Document has previously reported that seven out of every ten kroner in social assistance now go to people with an immigrant background.
The figures also affect the young. Among immigrants aged between 15 and 29, 23.1 per cent were outside employment, education and training in 2023. In the rest of the population, the proportion was 7.3 per cent.
The difference is greatest among women. 25 per cent of young immigrant women were outside employment, education and training, compared with 21.3 per cent of men.
Voluntary organisations are to solve it
Stenseng’s answer is a new integration strategy. It continues to rely on voluntary organisations such as Rabea Movement and Sosialtreff for kvinner, rather than more substantial structural measures to address what happens in the home.
The strategy does not address the structural problem shown by the figures. As long as a woman’s place in the home is the norm within the family, it makes little difference that the Norwegian-language course is moved to the workplace. The bill for the unused labour still ends up with taxpayers, year after year.
