A social media post claiming that Iceland’s government would provide a government job to men who marry Icelandic women is being widely circulated. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Iceland government would provide a government job to men who marry Icelandic women.
Fact: Iceland government does not provide a job or any financial grant to men who marry an Icelandic woman. Iceland’s government officials denied the claim earlier when it went viral on internet. Iceland based media also reported officials denying the claim. Further, Iceland’s male population is slightly more than females. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
There are no reports regarding the Iceland government’s offer to provide a job to men who marry Icelandic women. If at all there is indeed any such legislation, there could have been widespread reporting in the media. However, we could not find any such reports.
A similar claim that said Iceland government would provide a monthly financial grant to men who marry Icelandic women is doing rounds on the internet at least since 2016. However, even this claim is not true.
Speaking to AFP in March 2020, a spokesperson for Chamnarn Viravan, Iceland’s honorary consulate general in Thailand, said that the claim is not true
Iceland media reports have also denied the claim in 2018 when the claim went viral again. ‘The Foreign Ministry of Iceland states categorically that any and all news items or rumors of this money-for-marriage deal are a hoax and that enquiries to the Ministry or its foreign representations are not required’, the article reported.
The earlier claims were based on the assumption that the male population of Iceland is very low compared to the female population. However, even this is not true as per the data provided by the United Nations Population Division. The number of males slightly outnumbers females in Iceland. Thus it is unlikely that the Iceland government would make such an offer based on this false assumption.
To sum it up, the Iceland government does not provide jobs to men for marrying Icelandic women. The viral claim is fake.
