Making a living

Category: Ramblings | Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:08 pm

With our very long coast line, Norwegians have always depended on the sea. We've found food there and used it for transport. We still do. Every small, inhabited place along the coast have sad stories to tell about all the people going out fishing and never returning. Often all men from one family perished, leaving their women and children behind.

The smallholder/fisherman existed until the mid-sixties, when industry finally spread out, giving people a chance to earn a living without risking their lives all the time. My grandparents were the proud owners of a rather big fishing boat, and had a couple of cows, a pig and some sheep that my grandmother tended while my grandfather was away. I'm able to remember their boat, their last pig and their sheep, so it's not too long ago. But now, this breed is all but extinct.

Further inland there were bigger farms and better climate, so farming was the main occupation. Farmers still grow wheat and such as their main livelihood, although most farm in addition to a full-time job. The full-time farmer is nearly gone. It's difficult to support a family on a Norwegian farm's income these days.

The towns had all kinds of occupations of course, to cater to the factory workers. Ours are no different from any other European towns, except they're much smaller.

Norwegians have always made boats, and that is a big industry in my part of the country. All the small ship wharfs are swallowed up by the big ones like Rolls-Royce, and they employ thousands of people. In one small valley the art of making wooden boats still lives on. Nice viking ship replicas are made there.

Now, some boring numbers:

35% of the population is working within higher education or are academics.
32% are in sales or service businesses.
19% are drivers, carpenters, masons and such.
And barely 3% are farmers or fishermen.
The ones missing are a bit here and a bit there.

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CritterPainter wrote on Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:17 pm:

Yes, seems every year more grazing area becomes housing that people who are in debt over their heads are living in. Where I live, the neighbors had to build gates into the fence they built around their land because there is an established right-of-way for people to ride their horses through (not that anyone does, with the road only 900 feet away, but still...) This all used to be grazed, now noone can make a living doing that...

Frank wrote on Wed Oct 31, 2007 5:37 pm:

Farming is becoming an occupation on the past in Ireland also. It just doesn't pay enough for the amount of work involved and it's getting harder and harder to convince young people to take over the farm. Thankfully my little brother shall take over my family's farm as I was not much good at it.

Droopy wrote on Wed Oct 31, 2007 6:25 pm:

What worries me the most about disappearing farms, are the number of children who think milk and vegetables come from the shop. I refuse to accept that dairy cows are an endangered species. They're even trying to grow beef in the laboratory by using cell technology now. Yikes!

glendann wrote on Thu Nov 01, 2007 3:26 am:

It a shame to see all our dairy farms closed and all the big cotton and corn fields around here are no more.My uncle ground feed and sacked it for the farmers around here.I remember switching a lever to change to another sack.I loved doing it.I was small so I can't remember what was ground up but it was fun to help but picking cotton or pulling corn was no fun at all.Just plain hard hot tiring work.Its just about all in the past.