The Happiest People on Earth

The Happiest People on Earth

By Warren Boroson

Unlike Hamlet, most Danes are not melancholy. In fact, according to several polls, they’re the happiest people on earth.

     Just why are they so damn happy?

    Donna Skeels Cygan, CFP, in her new book, “The Joy of Financial Security” (Sage Future Press), claims that low taxes are NOT the reason. Denmark, in fact, has very high taxes.

    Here are some of her explanations:

   *free health care

    *free job training

    *free child care

    *free college education

   * free elder care

   * up to four years of unemployment benefits

   * six weeks of vacation.

   Also, the average Dane retires on 87% of what he or she made while working.

Meanwhile, Denmark has the lowest poverty level in the world, and the smallest disparity between the incomes of the rich versus the poor.

   Cygan’s conclusion: “Although it may not be feasible  to emulate every aspect of the Danish culture, it seems clear that happiness can be increased through government policies.”

   Another persuasive explanation for Danish contentment includes a warm, welcoming social life: “Hanging out with other Danes just may be their happiness secret. Ninety-two percent of Danes belong to some kind of social club, dancing, singing, even practicing laughing with other Danes. Get a few people together who enjoy model train building, for example, and the government will pay for it. In Denmark, even friendship is subsidized.” (ABC News)

   The Happiness Research Institute, a think tank in Copenhagen, offers still another reasonable explanation: “Denmark holds the highest level of trust in the world (Danes happily leave their babies in strollers outside shops and cafés while running errands)….” 

    I’m sure there are lots of other causes at work here, but my own suggestion is: Danes constitute a fairly uniform society. It’s when your neighbors are very different from you—in the way they talk, or dress, or walk, or look—that suspicion and hostility begin to breed. The United States is very different from Denmark—we pride ourselves, legitimately, on our multi-cultural society. But the incredible variety of our people may help explain our full prisons, our high levels of violence, and our mistrust of one another.

    E pluribis disunion.