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Af redaktionen 05-01 2010 - 22:08

Greenland’s high emigration rate is due mostly to the large number of young people attending post-secondary schools in Denmark, according to Statistics Greenland.

“What we can see is that a third of emigrants name education as the reason,” said Lars Petersen of Statistics Greenland.

He pointed out that concern about a brain drain were over exaggerated. “Normally they come back within five years.”

The statistics show that Greenland waves good-bye to far more people each year than it welcomes as new residents. The trend has accelerated during the past decade, and has seen the largest numbers emigrants in the 15-25 year-old bracket.

“If we look at the group emigrants who were born in Greenland, we can see that much of the net population loss is due to people leaving to study,” Petersen said.

In 2008, the net emigration amongst native Greenlanders was 653, the highest level in ten years.

In addition to being young, most were women.

Statistics Greenland figures also show that the population as a whole fell for the fourth year in a row last year. On 1 January 2005, there were 56,969 people living in Greenland. On 1 January 2010, there were 56,194.