Arctic Yearbook 2014
87
Figure 2: Percent of population born outside region in selected Arctic regions, circa 2010
Khanty-Mansiy Okrug
Yamal-Nenets Okrug
Chukotka Okrug
Alaska
Murmansk
Magadan
Kamchatka
Komi
Nenets Okrug
Karelia
Yakutia
Arkhangel'sk
Faroe Islands
Greenland
Iceland
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Source: National statistical offices.
In 2010, for all of Russia, 31 percent of the population were born outside the region they were living
in, of which 8 percent were foreign-born. For all Arctic regions, the percent born outside the region
were much higher. The highest shares of outsiders were in the Khanty-Mansiy and Yamal-Nenets
okrugs, where 70 percent were born outside the region. All of the Arctic regions also had much
higher foreign-born populations. Along with Moscow and St. Petersburg, many of the periphery
regions in the Arctic and Siberia have the highest rates of migration turnover. In these regions there
are high levels of both in-migration and out-migration and there is a high correlation between the
two indicating considerable migration turnover in the Arctic regions, and a quite footloose
population.
Age Structure of Migration in the Arctic
People who migrate are quite selective and distinct by age, level of education, level of risk taking and
entrepreneurship, and in some cases, gender, from populations who do not migrate. People are most
mobile in their young adult ages when they are starting their careers and starting families. This high
mobility of migrants to the Arctic can be seen by contrasting the age structures of ‘natives’ and
migrants in two Arctic regions – Alaska and Greenland (Figure 3a & 3b). The two examples are
meant to be illustrative and not necessarily comparable. Because of the different ways ‘native’ is
defined in Alaska and Greenland (and elsewhere in the Arctic), a strict comparison cannot be made.
The Alaska Native population has a much younger population as indicated by the much larger
cohorts of persons under age 20, 39 percent of all Alaskan Natives against 27 percent of nonnatives. Starting at age 20, the non-indigenous population becomes relatively larger in part because
these are the most mobile age groups when young people begin to migrate to Alaska in large
Migration in the Arctic