Employment in a post-colonial society – The case of Greenland

Abstract

In the fields of labour market research and industrial relations research, there is increasing interest in post-colonial societies and the labour market outcomes of indigenous peoples. However, existing research has generally underexplored the Greenlandic labour market. This is particularly true for factors associated with the Greenlandic Inuit population's employment outcomes. In this article, we investigate barriers and potentials for labour market participation in Greenland, focusing on individual-level factors that promote or inhibit the likelihood of being employed. We use a unique, nationally representative survey of the working-age population and explore these factors through a series of logistic regression analyses. We find that educational attainment, positive self-assessed health, and the number of people in the household were positively related to employment. Our most important findings and contributions are that respondents who answered the survey in Greenlandic were less likely to be employed compared to those who answered it in Danish. Furthermore, if a respondent was born in Greenland, compared to being born in Denmark, it lowers the likelihood of being employed. We interpret this disparity as evidence of an ethnically segregated labour market with indications of discrimination.