Nordregio has just published State of the Nordic Region 2026 – report we at Nordic Insights value a lot (and have actually co-authored in our previous lives). In this years edition the main focus is on demograpy, labour market and economy.
Nature is on the ballot in Denmark’s 2026 election. Only one part of Denmark’s organic transition is truly on track.
Across Europe, women hold 33.6% of seats in national parliaments. But look north ❄️ According to Eurostat, the top five countries in the EU are all Nordic:
This is the fifth and final article in a series exploring Greenland as more than ice and geopolitics. Using data rather than headlines, the series has examined population, work, living conditions, health — and now inequality. This concluding article focuses on income inequality and its distribution across age and gender, highlighting how recent shifts shape economic vulnerability and long-term social sustainability in Greenland.
Greenland’s economy is small, concentrated and structurally stable. GDP amounted to DKK 22.9 billion in 2023, and total employment in 2024 stood at just over 29,000 people. The economic structure sets clear boundaries for how quickly any sector can reshape the system:
At first glance, Greenland’s labour market looks strong. Unemployment is low and has declined steadily for both men and women. Yet beneath the headline numbers, the structure of work tells a more complex story.
Health outcomes in Greenland have improved over time, yet the country continues to trail the rest of the Nordic region. Since the late 1970s, life expectancy has increased by around 6–7 years for both men and women. Progress has been uneven, with notable year-to-year fluctuations among men, while women show a more stable and continuous improvement. Despite these gains, Greenland has not closed the gap to other Nordic countries, underlining that improvements in health have not translated into convergence.
Greenland’s population has remained remarkably stable over the past four decades, hovering around 55,000 residents. Beneath this stability, however, the composition of the population has shifted. While Greenland has long been connected to the outside world through work, education, and migration, the share of residents born outside Greenland has gradually declined. Today, Greenland is demographically shaped more from within than from abroad.
Greenland has recently been reduced to “a giant piece of ice” — a phrase used by Donald Trump amid today’s heightened geopolitical attention at Davos. The wording captures how Greenland is often discussed from the outside: as territory, strategy, and leverage. – But Greenland is not a piece of ice.
The Nordic countries are often grouped together in labour-market discussions. But the latest unemployment data suggest that this shorthand no longer holds. Finland now ranks as the second worst performer in Europe on unemployment, surpassed only by Spain. When EU countries are ranked side by side, the Nordics stretch from some of the strongest to some of the weakest labour-market outcomes in Europe. That gap has widened over time — and it raises uncomfortable questions about what is happening beneath the surface.