THE CHANGING LIVES OF YOUNG NORWEGIAN WOMEN
18 February 1997
Norwegian women fit more into their lives as young adults. They now have sex at an earlier age;
remain in education as long as men; and often delay starting a family in order to get ahead with their
career.
These are some of the findings just published by the United Nations Economic Commission for
Europe (UN/ECE) in Fertility and Family Surveys in Countries of the ECE Region, Standard
Country Report, Norway.
The report also shows that other major events that typically take place in early adulthood, such
as leaving the parental home and starting to live with someone are happening at an earlier age, while
completion of education, entrance into the labour market, marriage and children all happen later than
before. An extreme interpretation of this might be that the younger generation turned to the pleasures
first, and only later to the obligations of becoming an adult. The older generation tended to take
pleasures and obligations hand in hand.
The younger generation also exhibit new phenomena that were almost unheard of when their
parents were going through young adulthood. These include choosing to live with rather than marry
their partner and having a first child whilst unmarried.
Whilst this pattern of behaviour has been exhibited by men for more than fifteen years, it is quite
new for women. There are now, however, great similarities between the patterns exhibited by women
born in 1960 and those exhibited by men born in 1945 with respect to their age at first sexual
intercourse, average number of children born by age 28, and age at first childbirth. The only gender
difference of the 1945 male and 1960 female birth cohort is that women born in 1960 had already
completed their education. Thus, it would appear that women must fit more life events into fewer
years than young men.
The report is the result of a comprehensive survey research programme on partnership and
reproductive behaviour which the Population Activities Unit of the UN/ECE began in the late 1980s
with support from the United Nations Population Fund. This report is the first in a series of 20
comparable country reports, which examine new trends and patterns of partnership and reproductive
behaviour in Europe and North America.
Turid Noack and Lars Ostby, Fertility and Family Surveys in Countries of the ECE Region,
Standard Country Report, Norway, United Nations, Sales No. GV. E96.0.32.