ABSTRACT
Until the late 1960s, more people moved out of Norway than entered. Social change in Norway parallels the familiar story from throughout Western Europe: In less than 150 years, Norway has been transformed first from an agricultural to an industrial society and then from an industrial to a service society. Family patterns are very different today compared to thirty years ago. Norway has a Protestant state church, protected by the Constitution. However, although about 94 percent of the population nominally is members, only a minority of members practice their religion. Unemployment increased and stayed at a high level throughout the interwar years. Three economic cleavages have their origins in the markets for commodities and for labor respectively. The political regime in place after the war in 1945 was by these standards a fully fledged democratic system without significant institutional barriers toward movements challenging the political order.
