A while back I pondered why it is that Denmark ranks as the happiest country on earth. This little curiosity—Danes reporting higher levels of satisfaction than citizens of any other country—has been occurring for roughly 3 decades.
What’s going on? I mean, this is the place that invented existentialism. Well, a new study on the subject purports to find an answer. Curiously enough, it may actually be related to the reason that they produced Kierkegaard and (at least fictitiously) Hamlet: a certain kind of misgiving about the future.
According to coverage of the study in the New York Times, “Danes continually report lower expectations for the year to come, compared with most other nations.” And, year after year, Danes are surprised to find that things are actually pretty great in Denmark.
On the Freakonomics blog (a fun read, by the way), Stephen J. Dubner postulates that Denmark’s experience may indicate that there is an important difference between relative happiness and absolute happiness. I’d be curious to find out whether there’s any academic merit to Dubner’s line of thinking.
I’d also be curious to find out how daily Danish living translates to such pervasive levels of satisfaction. Again, from the NYT:
Danes “bask in a somewhat colder and cloudier version of the balmy English weather.” They also eat fatty foods and drink a lot…
Wait a second. That sounds like portions of a certain bioregion I know. Anyone think we should start measuring happiness along the Vancouver-Seattle-Portland axis in, say, January?
Jennifer
I am a US citizen who had the opportunity to study in Denmark as an exchange student years ago. It is a wonderful place to live. Yes, it’s cold and dark in the winter, but there are always get-togethers, dinners, parties . . . community. The summer evenings are long and gardens are lush. (I bet the happiness survey was done during the month of June. 🙂 The Danes are very practical people who are not impressed by flamboyant parades of wealth. Surgeons drink beer with plumbers. No one cares much about status. Danes, unlike we in the USA, are not constantly comparing ourselves against oneothers. Finally, it is undeniable that having socialized education and healthcare improves the quality of life of everyone eventhough it means high taxes. Jennifer of Bellevue, Washington
ethan
The Economist had an interesting article (http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8401269) related to this subject a few weeks ago. The renewal of an old effort to get economics to recognize happiness or quality of life is coming at a very interesting time. For example, Denmark has become a net exporter of energy by utilizing alternative energy methods. Does this cleaner, more independent energy contribute to the Danes’ happiness although it might not be traditionally economically as beneficial as simply exporting a lot of oil?
Jon Stahl
Like Jennifer, I also was fortunate to spend a semester in Denmark during college. (Guess it prepared me to face the dark Northwest winters!)The Danes have quietly accomplished something pretty remarkable: building a society without huge extremes of wealth and poverty, where nearly everyone has their basic human needs met, and where the overriding social values are of community, “coziness” (really!) and social cohesion.It’s a pretty good place to live. And so it’s not surprising that Danes are pretty happy.There is a downside, though. Denmark is still a pretty homogeneous society, and at least in the mid-90s they were still trying to figure out how to gracefully integrate an influx of immigrants from southeastern Europe (and beyond). I imagine that these tensions have only increased since then. And a homogeneous society oriented around stability can sometimes feel a bit conformist and constraining, especially for young people. Still, there’s no getting around the fact that in many ways, Denmark “works” and that we could learn a lot from them.
peterljacobsen
Visiting Denmark this last May opened my eyes, as it did for Jennifer and Jon. The study the NY Times quotes is from the British Medical Journal, Dec 23, 2006. It notes “Danes use bicycles to a great extent for transportation, a feature they have in common with another high ranker in life satisfaction, the Netherlands.”Portland has relatively high (for the USA) bicycle use. Since the mid-1990s, the City has done a lot to comfort bicyclists (e.g. downtown Willamette River bridges), and bicycle trips have doubled. Have the city residents become happier? I don’t know, but my bicycling friends in Portland seem a pretty happy lot. Based on the science of the British Medical Journal and my observations of Copenhagen and Portland, the cities of the northwest need to work harder to encourage more people to bicycle. Happy is good.
Kayla
As a dual citizen of both Canada and Denmark, I think the reason for this happiness has got to be the sense of community that you just don’t get elsewhere. Being such a small country with a relatively large population (Denmark can fit into the province of Alberta roughly 18 times, but has 5 million people, two times the population of Alberta), there is a community aspect that you don’t find in more sparsely populated areas. Another thing to factor in is that Denmark is a largely socialist country. They have income tax of 50% or more in most cases, and their sales tax is 25%. However, everything is taken care of. Education is completely free, and a living allowance is given to people who are in University. Apprenticeships and trades training is also provided. This provides the opportunity for the population to pursue goals and jobs that they really would like to do, whereas in Canada and other places without the socialized education, there just is not that opportunity. You learn what you can afford to learn. This also provides the Danes an opportunity to start their lives without the burden of debts. Personally, having begun my married life here in Canada with a little more than $35,000 of student loan debt alone between the two of us, I fully appreciate what a difference this would make in one’s life. So I think that the happiness of the Danes cannot be pinned down on one thing, but rather is likely a combination of many.