Population Dynamics in Arctic Alaska

Graphical Views of Community Change

Last updated May 2009

 

The villages and towns of Arctic Alaska are distant from the population and tourism centers of the state. For the most part, they are not reachable by roads and remain off the radar for most Americans in the lower forty-eight states. Despite their remote locations, these predominantly Alaska Native (Inupiat or Yupik) communities today find themselves on the front lines of global change. Built along coastlines where sea ice no longer protects shores from erosion by fall storms, villages such as Shismaref or Kivalina provide poster images of damage from Arctic warming. Others, such as Barrow, were transformed by the development of North Slope oil and stand to change further as energy developments wax and wane. Commercial fishing towns, such as Dillingham or Togiak, south of the Arctic Circle but still linked to the Arctic system, struggle to cope with the economic impacts of ocean changes, world markets, and overfishing. Rising fuel costs will have great effects on them all.

 

 

 

The external forces affecting these small places are likely to grow stronger in the years ahead, as climate change, global energy troubles, and ecological shifts become more acute. Meanwhile, many Arctic communities are experiencing changes from other sources as well, both positive and negative.

Research on climate change considers not only the climate but its "human dimensions," or implications for people. Social impact assessments try to anticipate the consequences of new energy and resource megaprojects. The Web pages here provide some background perspective for thinking about climate or development effects. They visualize how the most basic human dimension, population, has been changing in these places since 1990.

Population reflects the balance of births, deaths, in-migration, and out-migration. These graphs depict midyear population in each place and the number of deaths and births to residents together with resulting rough estimates of the net migration. Gray bars along the bottom of each graph show the number of births and deaths (calculated from data supplied by the Alaska Bureau of Vital Statistics). Births are almost always dominant, creating an upwards pressure on population. Using the same vertical scale (but higher starting points), the graph's main line depicts population (estimated by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development). Where short red line segments extend above the population line, they indicate net out-migration, or downward pressure on population. Red segments below the main line indicate net in-migration, causing population growth. More details about the statistics and graphic methods appear in an article by Lawrence Hamilton and Angela Mitiguy, forthcoming in Arctic.

The villages and towns depicted in the graphs linked above represent a selection, by no means complete, of northern and western Alaska communities. They also include the rural but not Arctic communities of Kodiak Island. Each place has its own story, but some broad patterns can be seen.

• Arctic Alaska towns and villages tend to have relatively high birth rates and, despite above-average mortality, high potential for natural increase.
• Natural increase in these towns and villages ranged from about -1 percent to +5 percent per year.
• Net migration ranged from -21 percent to +30 percent, much more variable than natural increase.
• Place-to-place variance in net migration is about 10 times larger than the variance in natural increase.
• Migration flows can respond quickly to changing conditions, including opportunities elsewhere.
• On average, most places experienced net out-migration over this period.
• Under some conditions, net out-migration offsets natural increase, resulting in population stability or decline.
• Otherwise, population shows a tendency to increase. Many places grew by 30 percent or more, without net in-migration, from 1990 to 2006.

The "graphical library" of Arctic Alaska population dynamics and circumpolar database of Northern Places was prepared by Carsey Institute researchers at the University of New Hampshire, as contributions to the International Polar Year (IPY) under the Arctic Observing Network Social Indicators (AONSI) and Humans and Hydrology at High Latitudes (H3L) projects. The projects have been supported by the Arctic Social Sciences and Arctic System Science programs of the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Lawrence Hamilton
Carsey Institute
University of New Hampshire

May 2009