Opinion: The secret of being the world’s second happiest country
Opinion by Emma Firth
(CNN) — The UN World Happiness Report released last week ranked Denmark the world’s second happiest country for a sixth consecutive year. Denmark came just behind Finland, a country that has now held the top spot for seven years in a row.
You might be tempted to think of Denmark as perennial runner-up. But that would mean you probably don’t understand the Danish way of thinking.
People in Denmark have a way of reframing situations that others might see as less than ideal. Writers Jessica Joelle Alexander and Iben Dissing Sandahl get at this mindset in their book, “The Danish Way of Parenting,” when they describe Danes as “realistic optimists.” Simply put, Danes are taught to reframe negative situations into positive ones.
For instance, the headlines about the World Happiness Report don’t focus on the fact that Danes came second to Finland again, but that Denmark came in first in the 60 years and older category. And news reports don’t dwell on the fact that Finland once again reigns supreme, but instead highlight that the margin between the two countries was smaller this year than last.
Denmark achieved an overall score this year of 7.586. Finland’s was just a tiny bit higher at 7.804. These scores are mainly calculated from the Gallup World Poll, where around 100,000 people in 130 countries are asked to score their lives on a scale of zero to 10 – zero being the worst possible life and 10 being the best.
The Happiness Report then takes an average of the numbers given by those surveyed in each nation across the last three years. This year’s rankings are from polls carried out between 2021 and 2023. Data is also analyzed from a country’s GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption.
Meanwhile, the United States fell out of the top 20 of the World Happiness Report for the first time in the dozen years of its existence, landing in 23rd place, largely as a result of a decline in the level of satisfaction expressed by people aged 30 and younger.
When I asked Catarina Lachmund, a senior analyst at Denmark’s Happiness Research Institute, what makes Finland happier than Denmark, she jokingly replied, “saunas.” Finland does have an impressive 3 million saunas for its population of 5.5 million, plus 188,000 lakes and forests that cover 75% of the land, according to Visit Finland. And then there are the Northern Lights, which you can see around 200 nights a year from Lapland, incidentally where Santa Claus lives. There’s a lot to like.
But scientifically, Lachmund said the differences between Denmark and Finland “are so minimal that you can’t actually point them out.” There’s a reason, after all, that Denmark held the title of happiest country in the world three times previously. What both Denmark and Finland have in common is a welfare system that as Lachmund told me, “allows you to fail.”
You can lose your job in Denmark and be supported by unemployment benefits. You can get sick and not worry about a bill or quality of care. You can have a full year off work to look after your newborn baby and then go back to your job, using childcare that is 75% funded by the state. Education is free, including university where students are paid a monthly state grant for living costs. There’s social housing, abortion rights and unions that are so strong there isn’t a need for a national minimum wage.
The confidence in public authorities translates into a society of trust. A trust that is so great, the nursery my toddler went to didn’t have a lock. When she napped, it was outside in a pram with a monitor. School playgrounds are open to the public and children as young as nine are trusted to make their own way to school.
Family is also important to Danes. An 80-year old Danish relative of mine thinks it’s why the older generation came out on top in this year’s happiness report.
“Denmark is very cohesive in terms of family and among older people there’s a lot of satisfaction from that,” he told me. That feeling of togetherness is part of the concept of hygge — which can be defined as informal time together with the people you love.
Another Danish word to describe a similar concept is fælles. Directly translated as “shared,” it encompasses the idea of togetherness and is found in other words like fællesspisning, an initiative “to eat together as a community” and fællessang, “community singing.”
These are wonderful, authentic Danish ideas but it doesn’t mean Danes think they should earn the top spot in the World Happiness Report — not even if they had 3 million saunas. “I’m very pleased not to be number one, it means we’re not all meant to be happy,” one relative on the Danish side of my family told me, with classically dry humor that’s a national characteristic.
Here’s something else to know about the Danes: They are profoundly, famously self-deprecating. They stoically adhere to an unspoken social code called Jante Law — a concept adhered to throughout all of Scandinavia actually — that discourages individuals from thinking too highly of themselves. Understatement, modesty — even a certain amount ot conformity — are celebrated. That applies to national aspirations as well. Danes don’t need a score to show they’re doing well, they know that already. Why rub their neighbors’ noses in it?
Which brings me back to the World Happiness Report and consistently being runner up to Finland. Denmark was named the happiest country in 2012, 2013 and 2016 — and could well claim top spot again someday. But until such a time, allow me to introduce you to another bit of deeply Danish concept.
It has to do with the word pyt, (pronounced pid), which was chosen by lexicographers a few years back as Denmark’s favorite word. An approximate English translation might be, “never mind, stuff happens,” and might be said perhaps with a slight shrug of the shoulders and merest hint of a smile. It’s somewhat analogous to the concept that English speakers refer to as “water off a duck’s back.”
It allows Danes to accept a situation like coming in second place without getting too upset about it.
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