Ageing in the Arctic:
Cross-cultural Insights (Insights Phase)

Norway's older population is becoming more diverse — but public services, local communities, and welfare systems have been slow to reflect that change.

Cross-Cultural Insights is a design and research project led by Fabric+ in partnership with the Nordic Welfare Centre and Design and Architecture Norway (DOGA), developed in dialogue with the Centre for an Age-Friendly Norway. The project explores how older immigrants experience ageing in Norway, and what municipalities, service providers, and policymakers can learn from their stories.

The work brought together more than 35 contributors across Bodø and Oslo — older immigrants, practitioners, researchers, community organisers, and subject experts — through interviews, workshops, and a review of Nordic and European literature.

What we found

Nine key insights emerged, spanning language access, structural policy gaps, economic barriers, social belonging, family care, dementia, and dignity in services. Together they reveal a consistent pattern: older immigrants are often caught between policy systems, face barriers that current services are not designed to address, and hold knowledge and experience that those same systems fail to recognise or use.

Where we go from here

The findings point to several concrete areas for further exploration: how public services communicate with older immigrants; how social networks can be better supported across cultural differences; how language access can be extended beyond formal thresholds; and how the role of trusted community intermediaries can be given real institutional backing. These are not abstract questions — they are practical starting points for service design, policy development, and community-level action.