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Norwegians are living longer and longer, while we give birth to fewer and fewer children. There will be fewer people of working age behind each pensioner.
How does development with more elderly and fewer working-age people affect districts?
In October of last year, a separate committee was appointed to investigate this issue. This week, the committee presented its report to the Ministry of Local Government and Modernization.
The report contains several suggestions on how to move young people away from cities and rural areas:
- Attempts with limited driver’s licenses for 16-year-olds to make rural youth more mobile
- Experiment with free kindergarten and OFS to increase family establishment and relocation in district municipalities.
- Tax exemption attempts to stimulate the rural rental housing market
– An old house in a picturesque setting
According to population projections from Statistics Norway, one in five people will be over 70 by 2060, compared to one in eight today, two of the committee members wrote in a column on VG this week.
The committee believes that it is possible to stabilize the population in the districts in the coming years, but notes that it will require “active district policy efforts.”
Victor Norman has chaired the committee that has analyzed what the demographics will be like in Norway in the future.
Photo: Jon Petrusson / NRK
The committee’s leader, Victor Norman, says the stakes are high.
– If we do nothing, the District of Norway will become a former home in a picturesque setting. If the districts become first a nursing home and then a cemetery, then we will have lost the entire battle for districts in Norway. So we need to make sure that young people come to the districts, Norman tells NRK, adding:
– We are 10 to 20 years old. But then we have to start today.
Young children’s parents Tonje Eilertsen and Christian Kleiv don’t really want to get out of the Oslo cauldron.
Photo: Jon Petrusson / NRK
– I should have had money to live there.
The committee also believes that creating more jobs is crucial for young adults to stay away from big cities.
The parents of young children Tonje Eilertsen and Christian Kleiv, whom NRK meets at Majorstua in Oslo, are clear that it would be difficult to convince them to move to a small municipality in the district of Norway.
– It is especially important that there are good job opportunities, says Eilertsen.
– Probably should have had more than one job. He really shouldn’t have had a job and had money to live there, says Kleiv, with a smile.
Helleland: Important Freedom
The committee notes that the goal of districts should not be growth per se, but rather create a good society for the people who live there.
District Minister and Digitization Linda Hofstad Helleland (H).
Photo: Lotte Olsen Jessa / NRK
The Minister for District and Digitization, Linda Hofstad Helleland (H), points out that many choose to settle in more central areas, even though there are jobs in the districts.
Therefore, decentralized education and good communities for families and job-seeking youth are important, in addition to attractive jobs in the private sector, says Helleland, who believes the report has several good proposals.
– It was pretty good there, for example, that we have to investigate whether 16-year-olds should be allowed to get a limited driver’s license in the districts. I myself was 16 years old in the village and all I wanted was freedom and drive in my mother’s red Mazda 323. Public transportation is poor and long distances, Helleland tells NRK.
