Norway, Sweden, Denmark. Three beautiful countries, that despite having comparably small populations, are so successful across so many areas. Whether it’s gender equality, overall happiness, or wealth the Scandinavian countries always come out towards the top. But why is that? And what can we learn from it?
In regards to having the most gender equality, according to statista.com, Denmark is 2nd , Sweden is 3rd and Norway is 6th . Although the gender pay gap does still exist there, it is among the lowest in the world. In addition, the Nordic countries were the first to come up with paid parental leave which we now refer to as “maternity” or “paternity” leave. There is still a long way to go until full gender equality is reached, but we can learn from these Scandinavian countries that we need to continue working towards closing the gender pay gap and taking all genders into equal consideration.
All three Scandinavian countries are within the top 7 happiest countries in the world. Denmark feels this happy due to people’s generosity and also a “perceived lack of corruption” according to worldpopulationreview.com. Next, Norwegians have a better work-life balance compared to other countries, a low crime rate, and a strong sense of community. Finally, Sweden has a high GDP per capita and has a very high life-expectancy. From this, I believe that we can learn that happiness stems from a variety of sources and that there is not only one way to ensure it. Therefore, in order to progress we need development in many areas from the small things such as being more generous and kind to bigger things such as the government ensuring that everyone feels cared for, so that as many people as possible benefit from it.
Finally: wealth. All of the Scandinavian countries have more equal yet still great education systems for both primary and secondary, meaning that more people have the opportunity to go into better earning jobs, earning more money for themselves and also generating money for the country’s economy. In addition, the range in salaries is slightly smaller. This means that jobs considered as being low paid earn slightly more than they would in the UK, but also high earning jobs earn slightly less than they would in the UK. This reveals how education, and more so an equal education, is so important not only for the individual but also for the country.
