403. The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country
Rating: ☆☆☆1/2
Recommended by: Heather Ringoen
Author: Helen Russell
Genre: Nonfiction, Travel, Memoir, Foreign
304 pages, published May 19, 2014
Reading Format: Book
Summary
Brit Helen Russell was living in London and facing burn out. When her husband gets a job at Lego in Denmark, which is officially the happiest nation on Earth, they decide to take the leap and try out a year of living Danishly in rural Jutland. In this book, Russell explores all the things that make the Danes so perennially happy.
Quotes
“Psychologists at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, found that the better educated and wealthier a nation is, the less likely its population is to believe in a higher being. The Global Index of Religion and Atheism also assessed that poverty was a key indicator of a society’s tendency towards religion – so that poorer countries tend to be the most religious. The one exception to the rule? America.”
“He tells me about a word he’s been taught that encapsulates the Danish attitude to work: ‘arbejdsglæde’ – from ‘arbejde’ the Danish for ‘work’ and ‘glæde’ from the word for ‘happiness’. It literally means ‘happiness at work’; something that’s crucial to living the good life for Scandinavians. The word exists exclusively in Nordic languages, and hasn’t been found anywhere else in the world.”
“Continuing to learn throughout life helps improve mental well-being, boosts self-confidence, gives you a sense of purpose and makes you feel more connected to others, according to the Office for National Statistics.”
“Danes do have a good work-life balance on the whole. ‘And if we don’t, we usually do something about it. You ask yourself, “are you happy where you are?” If the answer’s “yes” then you stay. If it’s “no”, you leave. We recognise that how you choose to spend the majority of your time is important. For me, it’s the simple life – spending more time in nature and with family. If you work too hard, you get stressed, then you get sick, and then you can’t work at all.”
“Happiness is the things you possess divided by the things you expect.”
“the fact that I was dreaming of retirement at the age of 33 was probably an indicator that something had to change.”
“When he puts it like this, it sounds surprisingly sensible. Danes have a collective sense of responsibility – of belonging, even. They pay into the system because they believe it to be worthwhile. The insanely high taxation also has some happy side effects. It means that Denmark has the lowest income inequality among all the OECD countries, so the difference in take-home wages between, for instance, Lego’s CEO and its lowliest cleaner, isn’t as vast as it might be elsewhere. Studies show that people who live in neighbourhoods where most people earn about the same amount are happier, according to research from San Francisco State University and the University of California Berkeley. In Denmark, even people working in wildly different fields will probably have a similar amount left in the bank each month after tax. I’m interested in the idea that income equality makes for better neighbours and want to put it to the test. But since I live in what is essentially a retirement village, where no one apart from Friendly Neighbour works, there isn’t much of an opportunity in Sticksville. So I ask Helena C about hers. She tells me that the street she lives in is populated by shop assistants, supermarket workers, accountants, lawyers, marketers and a landscape gardener. ‘Everyone has a nice home and a good quality of life,’ she says, ‘it doesn’t matter so much what you do for work here.’ Regardless of their various careers and the earning potential that this might afford them in other countries with lower taxes, professionals and non-professionals live harmoniously side by side in Denmark. This also makes social mobility easier, according to studies from The Equality Trust on the impact of income equality. So you’re more likely to be able to get on in life, get educated and get a good job, regardless of who your parents are and what they do in Denmark than anywhere else. It turns out that it’s easier to live ‘The American Dream’ here than it’s ever likely to be in the US.”
“inhabitants paid cripplingly high taxes. Which meant that we would, too. Oh brilliant! We’ll be even more skint by the end of the month than we are already… But for your Danish krone, I learned, you got a comprehensive welfare system, free healthcare, free education (including university tuition), subsidised childcare and unemployment insurance guaranteeing 80 per cent of your wages for two years.”
“I Google ‘new country, Denmark, culture shock’ on my phone and drink coffee furiously. I learn that Danes drink the most coffee in Europe, as well as consuming eleven litres of pure alcohol per person per year. Maybe we’ll fit in just fine after all.”
“You know you’re going to get taxed a lot anyway, so you may as well just focus on doing what you love, rather than what’s going to land you a massive salary.”
“I call up the happiness economist Christian Bjørnskov who I spoke to at the start of my adventure to ask for his perspective. He confirms that this level of trust is key to keeping Danes so damned happy. As he told me before I started my quest, ‘life is so much easier when you can trust people’, and this is regardless of whether you’re actually about to get your bank account wiped or have your house burgled. ‘So if I feel safe and trust the people around me, I’m less likely to feel stressed or anxious. I have the headspace to be happy?’ ‘Exactly,’ he tells me. ‘And countries with a major welfare state tend to be high-trust countries, though the high levels of trust in Denmark aren’t necessarily caused by the welfare state.”
“Research shows that great art and design can even induce the same brain activity as being in love – something Denmark cottoned on to 90-odd years ago.”
“After two weeks of paternity leave post-birth, (my husband) goes back to work before tying up loose ends to take ten weeks off to care for his baby. He has a big shiny job at one of the country’s most profitable companies, but a dad taking time out, fully paid, to look after his child is recognised as something that’s important and so is encouraged.”
“Danes actually work an average of just 34 hours a week. Employees are entitled to five weeks’ paid holiday a year, as well as thirteen days off for public holidays. This means that Danes actually only work an average of 18.5 days a month.”
“a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition confirming that home-cooked meals actually make people feel better than indulgent meals eaten at a restaurant.”
My Take
The Year of Living Danishly gave me a lot of insight in Denmark, reportedly the happiest nation on earth. They have very high taxes that everyone pays, but also a very high level of social welfare benefits. This makes for very low income inequality and a low-stress life. However, the Danish system is not transferable to other countries. The only way the Danes make it work is their homogeneous population and their exceptionally high levels of trust.
