Does international labour migration affect internal mobility in rural Norway?

Abstract

During the last two decades, Norway has evolved from a relatively homogenous country to a more multicultural one with international migrants in all parts of the country. According to register data from Statistics Norway, the proportion that are international migrants has increased from 5.3 per cent in 2000 to 14.4 per cent in 2019 (Statistics Norway n.d.). In addition to the arrival of refugees, it is particularly the enlargement of the European Union (EU) to the east, starting in 2004, that sparked an unprecedented increase in migration to Norway. These 'new' labour migrants, originating in eastern Europe, have, to a larger degree than other migrants, settled outside Norway's urban regions (Rye and Slettebak 2020). Therefore, many rural areas previously unfamiliar with international migration have experienced a large influx of labour migrants. The large body of academic literature discussing the impact of international migration on native-born workers is mostly focused on wages, employment and other outcomes related to social mobility (See, e.g. Blau and Kahn 2012, Card 2009, Hoen, Markussen and Røed 2018). Less attention has been paid to the effect on geographic mobility. Particularly in Europe, this is an underresearched field. Further, the extant research has little focus on rural areas. This chapter offers an examination of whether international labour migration to rural areas has had any effect on the internal mobility patterns of 'natives,' that is: people born in Norway (note that the term 'native,' which is commonly used in the literature to refer to someone that is born in a particular country, does not refer to ethnicity). Are international migrants only adding to the population, or are they replacing other in-migrants and pushing out similarly skilled workers, or creating new inflows of internal migrants? These questions are interesting and important for three reasons. First, answering these questions provides important insight into the role of eastern European labour migrants in rural labour markets and their effect on Norwegian-born workers. Although there seems to be agreement in the public