OSLO, May 25 (Xinhua) -- A recent survey has shown that more than half of the immigrants to Norway would like to remain residents in this Nordic country, newspaper Aftenposten reported Thursday.
The same research that Statistic Norway conducts every tenth year showed that 50 percent of the interviewed immigrants feel strongly connected to Norway.
On average, immigrants are likely to feel more connected to Norway than to the country they originally came from.
This is most evident among people from Iran, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Iraq.
However, many feel both belonging to Norway and to the country of origin, most of them from Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
"We find no contradiction between feeling at the same time belonging to the country they originally came from and to Norway," said Kjersti Stabell Wiggen, project manager for the survey.
The other end of the scale shows that 3 percent of immigrants feel very little or no degree of belonging to Norway. This is evenly distributed among most countries of origin.
About 12 percent indicate very little or no degree of belonging to the home country. Those are immigrants from Afghanistan and Iran who have mostly broken connection with their country of origin.
"More than half of those who have answered the survey say they want to remain in Norway in the future," Statistics Norway wrote.
In this case, there are big differences from country to country.
While 38 percent of immigrants from Poland want to remain residents in Norway, the proportion is twice as high for people from Afghanistan and Vietnam.
Twenty-two percent of Poles want to move back, while only 2-3 percent of immigrants from Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Pakistan want the same.
"Forty-six percent answer that they speak Norwegian at home and the degree has been increasing over the years in Norway. People from Afghanistan and Eritrea state that they speak least Norwegian at home, but this may coincide with short period of stay in Norway," Wiggen said.
However, immigrants from Somalia, who on average have lived in Norway relatively shortly, mostly speak Norwegian at home.
"Sixty percent of Somali immigrants report that they speak Norwegian at home. There are as many as those from Turkey and Pakistan, who have relatively long period of stay in Norway," Wiggen said.
