Øyvind Bjørnson was a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 who specialized in labor history

Labor history

Labor history may refer to:* Labor history , a subfield of the discipline of history**Labor history of the United States, describes the history of organized labor, as well as the more general history of working people, in the United States...

 and the history of the welfare state

Welfare state

A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...

.

He hailed from Haugesund

Haugesund

is a town and municipality in the county of Rogaland, Norway.-Location:Haugesund was separated from Torvastad as a town and municipality of its own in 1855. The rural municipality of Skåre was merged with Haugesund on January 1, 1958. Haugesund is a small municipality, only 73 km²...

. He took the cand.philol. degree in 1979, and later the dr.philos. degree in 1987 with the thesis Den nye arbeidsdagen. In 1990 he published På klassekampens grunn, volume two of the work Arbeiderbevegelsens historie i Norge

Arbeiderbevegelsens historie i Norge

Arbeiderbevegelsens historie i Norge is a six-volume work about the labour movement history of Norway. It was released between 1985 and 1990 by Tiden Norsk Forlag....

, the history of the Norwegian workers' movement. He then covered the welfare state history with the books 100 år for bedre arbeidsmiljø, published in 1993 at the 100th anniversary of the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority

Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority

The Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority is Norwegian government agency under the Ministry of Labour. It is responsible for supervising the Working Environment Act, the Annual Holidays Act, the National Holidays Act as well as certain sections of the Smoking Act.The organization consists of a...

, and Langsomt ble landet et velferdssamfunn, published in 1994 together with his life partner

Life partner

A life partner is a romantic or otherwise very close friend for life. The partners can be of the same or opposite sexes, married or unmarried, and monogamous or polyamorous....

 and colleague Inger Elisabeth Haavet. His last work, Haugesund 1914-1950. Dei trødde sjøen published in 2004, was about his hometown, linked with broader global economic trends. He was a professor at the University of Bergen

University of Bergen

The University of Bergen is located in Bergen, Norway. Although founded as late as 1946, academic activity had taken place at Bergen Museum as far back as 1825. The university today serves more than 14,500 students...

since 1993.
Bjørnson died in December 2007 following a long-term lung illness.