UN Rates Denmark As World’s Happiest Country

They are the
most indebted
people in the world, live through long, dark winters
and have a shorter life expectancy than several
Mediterranean countries.
Yet for the past four decades, the Danes have
consistently rated themselves as the happiest
people on Earth.
But then, in a country where there is an
unemployment insurance in place that guarantees
80-percent wages for two years if you lose your job,
what's there not to be happy about?
Among foreigners in Denmark, theories as to why
the host population is so content range from its
egalitarian policies to its history to grumblings that
some people are simply easier to satisfy than
others.
"You can reach a high-ranking politician or a
director here even if you are an ordinary person,"
said Josephine Hoegh, a woman from the
Philippines who moved to the Scandinavian
country 40 years ago.
The Danes themselves are more puzzled by their
purported happiness, sometimes referring to it
facetiously when data paint a less rosy picture –
like when the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development said they were the
third-largest consumers per capita of
antidepressants.
Denmark first topped the happiness table in 1973,
when a European Union survey found that people
there were more satisfied with life than in any
other member state.
This year, it held on to the top spot in the United
Nations' annual World Happiness Report even as it
suffered through the worst economic crisis of its
post-World War II history.
In the study, respondents were asked to evaluate
the current state of their lives using a scale of zero
to 10, where a top rating signified the best possible
life for them, and zero the worst.
Denmark scored an average 7.693.
"One of the most important things making the
Danes happy is the security in Danish society,"
said Meik Wiking, director of the Happiness
Research Institute, a Danish think-tank aiming to
improve the quality of life in Denmark and abroad.
"There is a high degree of financial security. If we
lose our jobs we get support, when we fall ill we
can go to the hospital, and so on," he added.
Denmark has the highest taxes in the world as a
percentage of the overall economy, but many
Danes value the social security net they get in
return, including subsidised childcare and
unemployment insurance that guarantees 80-
percent wages for two years if they lose their jobs.
The centre-left government has had to cut back on
some benefits – including student grants and
unemployment insurance, which used to last four
years – but it still presides over one of the most
generous welfare states in the world.
The second pillar of happiness is a high level of
trust between people, even for a stranger on the
street, according to Wiking.
This could be a spillover effect from people's high
level of trust in the government, which is
underpinned by a low level of corruption.
"We have a belief that our democratic institutions
protect us and that the state… wants what is good
for us," he said.
Denmark's welfare state isn't radically different
from other Nordic countries', but in surveys the
nation scores higher than its neighbours on social
relationships, another reason for being happy.
"Danish society is more cohesive. The quality of
social relations is somewhat stronger" than in the
rest of Scandinavia, Wiking said.
The country has a large number of clubs and
associations where membership often transcends
class barriers. At a chess club, a chief executive
could be playing against someone working in a
shop.
Other explanations for the Danes' self-reported
wellbeing can be found in history.
Denmark was a European great power between the
13th and 17th centuries. But as the country's
official website states, today its size and influence
"is the result of 400 years of forced
relinquishments of land, surrenders and lost
battles."
"They haven't won anything for the last 200 years,
they've only lost, and that's created a mentality in
Denmark of looking inward and of valuing what you
have left," said Michael Booth, a British expatriate
who has written a book on his adopted Nordic
home called "The Almost Nearly Perfect People".
Danes also have a knack for denying unpalatable
truths, he said.
"They have the highest level of private debt in the
world… but they're very good at putting their
hands over their ears and going la-la-la," he said.
"One aspect of that is they're very good at
forgiving public figures who transgress. Like
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the prime minister who
took them into two terrible wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq, and also permitted terrible economic
policies.
"He's really wrecked the economy, but you never
hear a bad word said about him."
There's also the fact that the Danes don't work
very much, putting in an average of only 33 hours
a week, according to the Rockwool Foundation.
Still, after initially hating the taxes, the weather
and a "suffocating embarrassment about
individual ambition and success," Booth admitted
that since becoming a parent, there was nowhere
else he'd rather live.
"Denmark is, if not one of the best, maybe even
the best country to have kids. Everything is geared
to the family in Denmark," he said.