Islands’ men ‘import brides’ to increase population

The Danish Faroe Islands, located between Norway and Iceland, has experienced a falling birth rate that threatens the archipelago’s future population. Men outnumber women by 2000 and the total population of the Faroes is just 48,500. As reported by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, many Faroese women leave the islands to study in large cities like Oslo, Copenhagen or London and half never return. Hermann Oskarsson, the islands’ former chief economic advisor, warned that by 2023, the population could fall to 37,000. He told Politiken newspaper, “It is a question of survival. The young women that should be here to give birth to children are gone.” Some Faroese men feel they have the solution to the emigration of Faroese women and have started ‘importing wives’ from the Philippines and Thailand. Filipinos.read more