Islam in Denmark
Islam in Denmark being the country's largest minority religion plays a role in shaping its social and religious landscape. According to a 2018 estimate, a little more than 300.000 people or 5.3% of the population in Denmark is Muslim. The figure has been increasing for the last several decades. In 2009, the U.S. Department of State reported the share as approximately 3.7% of the population. Earlier sources, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, have cited lower percentages. However, according to figures reported by the BBC in 2005, about 270 thousand Muslims lived in Denmark at the time (4.8% out of a population of 5.6 million).
Immigration to Denmark
The cost of integrating Denmark’s immigrant population both as socio-cultural and economic members of the Danish population has been used as a justification for the passage of increasingly stringent immigration and refugee policy. Recent numbers calculating the cost of immigration welfare benefits to the Danish economy are debated due to the number of complex factors involved. One 1997 report from the Ministry for Immigrants, Refugees and Immigration stated that the total cost of immigrants and their descendants to the state, taking into account their tax contributions as well, was 10 billion Danish Kroner. The following section explores the conceptual and numeric economic costs and gains that Denmark has experienced as its immigrant population has increased in recent years.