In Denmark, there is freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and the freedom to marry whomever you like – as long as that other person says yes, of course. Otherwise, me and Rachel Weisz would be a thing.
According to the Human Freedom Index 2015, an annual report that presents the state of human freedom in the world, Denmark ranks fourth, after Hong Kong, Switzerland and Finland. The UK comes in at 9th place, the US 20th, Russia 111th, China 132nd, Saudi Arabia 141st and, last, at 152nd, is Iran.
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‘No people can be truly happy if they do not feel that they are choosing the course of their own life’
World Happiness Report 2012
The index looks at classical rights like freedom of movement, assembly, expression, and so on, but has more than seventy indicators, including autonomy of religious organizations, freedom of media content, the treatment of same-sex relationships, divorce and equal inheritance rights.
However, I think there is one key factor when it comes to freedom that the Human Freedom Index overlooks: time, a resource that is shared out equally among us all. Every day, we each get 1,440 minutes and, every week, we each get 168 hours. However, we have very different levels of freedom when it comes to how we spend our time. In this chapter, we will look at three areas that impact on your freedom or how you spend your time – at work, with your family and on your commute – and see if there are lessons we can learn from the happiest people.
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LAND OF THE FREE
‘When it comes to increasing our quality of life, I think moving to Copenhagen is the best decision that we have made as a family.’
Kate and her husband, Simon, moved from London five years ago with their first child, when Simon was offered a job in Denmark. Since then, the family has grown to four. It was a leap of faith: Kate has since found a communications job in Copenhagen but gave up a well-paid job in London, at first to concentrate on bringing up their child, and neither Simon nor Kate had been to Denmark before.
‘We were just tired: tired of the long working hours; tired of the long commute; tired of feeling a bit like strangers when we finally had time at the weekends. I go to bed early and Simon worked really long hours, so some days we wouldn’t see each other at all.’
If there is one thing all expats in Denmark mention, it is the work–life balance. ‘You have a fundamentally different approach to time here. You value that families have time to eat together, every day. We might have earned more in London, but we had far less time.’
For many expats, the greatest change is in fact the shift in work–life balance; they describe Danish offices as being like morgues after 5 p.m. If you work at the weekend, Danes suspect you are a madman working on some secret project.
‘I think the main difference between the British and the Danish work culture is the unabashed value placed on free time. You value time with family and friends. You leave work at 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. And no excuse is needed. Last week, I left the office at five, I cycled home – I have gone full-on Danish – and was home twenty minutes later. Simon had picked up the girls and was preparing dinner.’
The notion in Scandinavia seems to be that it takes two people to make a baby, so it should be the equal responsibility of those two people to raise that child. ‘At work, the men will say they can’t make a meeting at 4 p.m. because they have to pick up their kids. That would never happen in London.’
And the data echoes Kate’s experience. According to the OECD, Danes enjoy one of the best balances between work and play in the world. The average annual hours worked per worker is 1,457 in Denmark, compared to 1,674 in the UK, 1,790 in the US and an OECD average of 1,766. Danes also enjoy a high level of flexibility at work – working from home and choosing what time to start their working day. Meeting deadlines and showing up punctually at meetings is more important than when or where you carry out your work. In addition, there is a minimum of five weeks’ paid holiday for all employees.
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Work–life Balance
1. Netherlands 2. Denmark
3. France
4. Spain
5. Belgium
6. Norway
7. Sweden
8. Germany
9. Russian Federation 10. Ireland
11. Luxembourg 12. Finland
13. Hungary
14. Estonia
15. Italy
16. Czech Republic 17. Switzerland 18. Slovak Republic 19. Slovenia 20. Greece
21. Canada
22. Austria
23. Portugal 24. Poland
25. Latvia
26. United Kingdom 27. Chile
28. New Zealand 29. Brazil
30. United States 31. Australia 32. South Africa 33. Iceland
34. Japan
35. Israel
36. Korea
37. Mexico
38. Turkey
Source: OECD Better Life Index
Fifty-two weeks of paid leave per child are allocated by the state, and these can be divided between you and your partner. The amount you receive depends on a range of factors, including your salary, and whether you work full time. However, even if you are unemployed, you will receive around 18,000 kroner (around ￡2,000) per month from the state. Child care is subsidized, too, which brings the price tag for parents to about ￡300 per month per child.
The differences in work–life balance, the family-friendly policies and the level of freedom parents experience are clear when we look at the happiness ‘price’ of being a parent: the so-called ‘parental happiness gap’.
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THE PARENTAL HAPPINESS GAP
There is no doubt that kids are great sources of joy and love; at the same time, they are sources of stress, frustration and worry.
Loving your children and believing they are the greatest thing in the world is not the same as having a stress-free experience. Children provide parents with purpose and demand a sacrifice of parental freedom in return. So how do kids affect our happiness? Is there any truth in the statement that parents are only as happy as their unhappiest child?
Usually, happiness studies find that parents are less happy than their oh-I-really-don’t-know-what-I-will-spend-all-my-weekend-doing-besides-going-to-Starbucks-binge-watching-Westworld-going-for-drinks-working-on-my-novel-relaxing-and-maybe-going-to-the-gym non-parent peers.
This is known as the parental happiness gap, or the parental happiness penalty, and it has prompted headlines like ‘HOW HAVING CHILDREN ROBS PARENTS OF THEIR HAPPINESS’ and ‘YOU ARE LESS HAPPY WHEN YOU HAVE A CHILD, STUDY SAYS’. However, I think that some of the nuances are often lost when such stories make the news.
First of all, while children may have a negative impact on one dimension of happiness (such as overall life satisfaction), having them is found to have a positive effect on another dimension of happiness – the eudemonic dimension, which focuses on the sense of purpose or meaning in life.
Second, children have a different impact on the happiness of women and that of men, as women, traditionally, have taken on a greater share of the responsibility and burden of raising kids. According to Luca Stanca, professor and author of ‘The Geography of Parenthood and Well-being’, the parenting penalty is 65 per cent higher for women.
Third, kids come in different sizes and ages. While a one-year-old baby who denies you your sleep for months may make you miserable right now, fifty years from now that child may be a source of joy when you’re sitting in a retirement home. Studies also show that, among widows and widowers, having a child has a positive effect on life satisfaction. Something to bear in mind with all these stories is that ‘Having Kids Makes People Less Happy’ is better clickbait than ‘Studies Show the Effects of Children on Happiness are Mixed, depending on the Dimensions of Happiness Measured and the Complexity of a Dynamic Lifetime Relationship’.
Life satisfaction premium
Source: Luca Stanca, ‘The Geography of Parenthood and Well-being: Do Children Make Us Happy? Where and Why?’ in the World Happiness Report – Special Rome Edition, 2016.