Of the foreign inhabitants residing in Iceland in 2023, the highest number had a Polish origin. Over 23,000 people with a Polish origin lived in Iceland. Danes, who made up the second largest group of foreign-born citizens, only counted 3,900 people. People from Poland also made up the largest group of people immigrating to Iceland in 2022.

Poles in Iceland

The number of immigrants from Poland started to increase after the country joined the European Union in 2004. Even though Iceland is not a member of the EU, it is a part of the European Economic Area (EEA), meaning that people from Poland do not need a residence or work permit when moving to Iceland. Traditionally, many Poles have been working in Iceland's important fishing industry, but in recent years, tourism, health care, and construction have also become important industries for Polish immigrants. In 2022, the tourism industry was the third largest employer in the country.

Employment in Iceland

The Nordic country is known for its high employment rates and high living standards. In 2022, more than 83 percent of the country's working age population was employed. This was the highest of the OECD countries that year.

Iceland IS: Population: Ages 15-64: % of Total Population data was reported at 66.600 % in 2023. This records an increase from the previous number of 66.510 % for 2022. Iceland IS: Population: Ages 15-64: % of Total Population data is updated yearly, averaging 66.190 % from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2023, with 34 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 67.530 % in 2008 and a record low of 64.240 % in 1993. Iceland IS: Population: Ages 15-64: % of Total Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Iceland – Table IS.OECD.GGI: Social: Demography: OECD Member: Annual.

The rock ptarmigan is a popular game bird in Iceland, but management of hunting has tended to be controversial. We were interested in whether regional differences in ptarmigan demography exist and, if so, their implications for harvest management. We fit integrated population models (IPMs) to monitoring data from six hunting regions of Iceland during 2005 – 2023, and then examined equilibrium and non-equilibrium harvests strategies based on an objective to maximize sustainable harvest. Survival and reproductive rates tended to be similar among regions, except in the demographically important Northeast, where survival was lower and productivity was higher. There was a negative relationship between post-breeding age ratio and spring abundance in all regions, although the strength of density dependence varied. Spring abundance was stable in all regions, although harvest rates tended to decline, and adult survival rates tended to increase. There was a tendency for temporal patterns of demography to be positively correlated among regions. Evidence for cyclical patterns in abundance was weak, but this may be an artifact of the relatively short time series. Sustainable harvest potential varied among regions and was greatest in the East and Northeast. It appears that harvests during 2005 – 2022 were somewhat less than the sustainable maximum. Non-equilibrium harvest strategies, in which the allowable harvests depend on spring population size and anticipated productivity, are so-called “bang-bang” strategies, meaning that no or very little harvest is optimal until the population is at or above its maximum level of net production. Synthesis and applications: Regional differences in ptarmigan demography warrant different harvest strategies. Yet the hunting season in Iceland historically has been regulated on a country-wide basis, with population abundance and dynamics in the Northeast playing a key role. To implement regional harvest management, decision makers must first agree on harvest-management objectives that satisfy most stakeholders, who tend to hold very diverse values. Moreover, the historical relationship between season length and harvest rate is tenuous at best, yet season length is the primary mechanism traditionally used to control harvest. The uncertainty in this relationship could be addressed in an adaptive-management framework. Methods We relied on ptarmigan monitoring data collected and compiled by the Icelandic Institute of Natural History and made publicly available (https://www.ni.is/en/research/monitoring-and-research/voktun-rjupnastofnsins). We partitioned data into six regions used for setting hunting seasons in Iceland: E – East, NE – Northeast, NW – Northwest, S – South, W – West, and WF - Westfjords (Fig. 1). For each region, we compiled transect-based estimates of spring abundance, hunting-season age ratios, spring age ratios (where and when available), total harvests, and the number of days afield by hunters. For each region, we used the same basic structure for population dynamics of the spring breeding population, expressing change in population size as a function of seasonal survival of juveniles and adults, post-breeding age ratio, and harvest rate. To estimate model parameters, we used Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation, using JAGS 4.3.0 run in the R computing language with the package jagsUI.

Distinct preference of species for habitats is most often driven by long term differences in demographic rates between habitats. Estimating variation in those rates is key for developing successful conservation strategies. Stochastic events can interact with underlying variation in habitat quality in regulating demography but the opportunities to explore such interactions are rare. Whimbrels in Iceland show a strong preference for sparsely vegetated riverplains. Such habitats in Iceland face various threats, e.g., climate change, river regulation and spread of alien plant species. In this study we compared demographic parameters of breeding Whimbrels between riverplains and other habitats before, during and after volcanic eruption events to estimate the importance of the habitats for the species and the effect of ash deposit on breeding success. We found that an estimated minimum of 23% of the Icelandic population of Whimbrels and c. 10% of the world population of the species breed in riverplain habitats in Iceland. Whimbrels bred consistently at much higher densities in riverplain habitats than in other habitats and riverplains also had higher densities of pairs with fledglings although the proportion of successful breeders was similar between habitats. Predation by livestock may have had a considerable negative effect on breeding success on our study sites. Breeding was negatively affected by the volcanic activity, probably through the effects of ash on the invertebrate food supply, with breeding success being gradually worse closer to the eruption. Breeding success was equally affected by volcanism across habitats which differed in underlying habitat quality. This study gives an example of how populations can be regulated by factors which operate at different spatial scales, such as local variation in habitat quality and stochastic events which impact larger areas.

In both Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, people aged 70 years or more made up the largest age group in 2023. This is especially the case in Finland and Sweden, with ******* and *** million people in this age group, respectively. Meanwhile, people between 30 and 39 years formed the largest age group in Iceland. Sweden is the Nordic country with the largest total population.

In Iceland, more than two thirds of the crime suspects in 2021 had an Icelandic citizenship. 30 percent were foreign citizens. In total, there were 5,874 crime suspects in Iceland that year. A large majority of the suspects were men.

In 2018, the Police in Iceland recorded the highest number of alcohol-related offenses between 2011 and 2021, when 828 offenses were reported. In 2020, however, the number dropped to 308 as a result of COVID-19 restrictions. By far, the alcohol-related crime reported most often was public consumption. The prohibition of alcohol in Iceland was lifted in 1989, and the current legal drinking age in Iceland is 20 years.