Migration
One problem in Northern Europe is immigration into the countries especially by Syrian refugees. Countries have differences over what immigration policies are right. Some countries, like Sweden, are more open to refugees while others are more strict. Some countries are afraid of immigrants taking jobs, while there citizens remain unemployed. Many of the refugees don’t have any identification and have trouble getting into the countries. Due to these troubles, many refugees try to cross illegally and end up in worse troubles, sometimes even dying along the way. |
Population Growth
Northern Europe’s yearly population growth rate is <1% of its total population.Latvia and Lithuania’s populations are decreasing, while the UK and Ireland’s populations are growing quite quickly compared to other countries in Northern Europe. People living in urban areas tend to have 1 or no kids due to the high living costs; some people move away to more rural areas with lower living costs in order to start a family. One solution some countries are doing is allowing more immigrants into their countries to increase their population. Immigrants are also statistically proven to have more children. |
Poverty
Although Northern Europe is filled with MDC’s, poverty is still an issue in many countries. Latvia has the most poverty out of all the countries in Northern Europe with over 33.9% of its population in poverty. Lithuania and Ireland come next with around 25.7-33.9% of their population in poverty. Norway, on the other hand, has a low percentage of poverty is due to their high social safety net by their government. Although this causes high taxes, this has many benefits including free healthcare. It not only helps people out of poverty, it keeps them from falling back in. Absolute poverty is rare in Norway due to this and the poor people living in Norway live better compared to the poor in other countries. One reason Latvia has such a large percentage of their population in poverty is due to their economy falling sharply in 2008 which caused many people to be unemployed. |