The Denmark secret: how it became the most trusting country | Hacker News Reader

The Denmark secret: how it became the most trusting country

theguardian.com

49 pointsPotatoNinja114 comments

American in Denmark here: Yes, this is exactly right. The article covers a lot of topics but does a good job for the most part. The only thing not mentioned from HN point of view is that for tech workers, salaries are MUCH lower than in the US. My family's quality of life quotient though is very high. My kids (12, 14) have basically free reign of the city and we don't worry about them at all.

It has some times been a political theme in Denmark that we have to attract highly skilled workers and how we can do that best. Often the talk has been about for instance giving foreign workers tax exemptions.

On those occasions I've often wondered how much of an impact the high trust and high social of safety has - for instance compared to salary. I'd imagine that it plays a big role in making people stay.

The tax exemptions definitely help at least getting people to move in the first place and they were a big part in my decision (I'm on the Forskerskatteordningen)

It's hard to put a value on a high trust high quality of life society without living in it first

It's important that Denmark continues to attract high quality employers (such as in tech, big tech companies with American levels of pay).

I think our work ethic here seems to help with that too (Danes seem to be 100% switched on all the time at work but will not touch it once the day is over). At least the impression I get, which is of course subjective and just my experience, is that US company owners consider us more or at least as productive as folks on the west coast.

This is generally an issue currently in the EU: Countries are stealing talent and letting residents pay. As such I myself exploited NHR in Portugal. But it is possible to both move to Hungary and Holland on tax reduction schemes.

Personally, I hold the belief that these should not exist. They are a race to the bottom only the well educated can participate in.

Living in a bigger small town in Germany I completely agree, I can’t imagine living somewhere where I can’t let the kids roam free… if I’m at the bakery I don’t have to lock my bike (and neither do the others) most of the kids at the local skatepark where I skate come and go on their own, on bikes or public transit and are unsupervised… but nobody would suspect neglect… if something happens we’ll help each other and the parents get called by their friends everyone looks after each other, the older ones don’t smoke their weed near the younger :D and so forth… oh and this is in a more “socially strained” neighborhood not the rich villa type of neighborhood

The salary component is interesting. While Denmark definitely has lower salaries than the US, it still has higher salaries than other European countries.

I considered moving to France or the UK, but in both cases I would have to take serious salary reductions. Anecdotally, I know that Tesla Berlin hire SWEs at around 60k EUR. Offers from Norway and Sweden have been considerably below what the Danish unions report as average salary.

Danish salaries, especially at US companies, aren't even that low, to take an example: https://levels.fyi/companies/uber/salaries/software-engineer...

That's more than double what the average company pays a senior dev in Denmark.

The big difference is the stock component, which Danish companies usually does not offer.

But DKK 1.000.000 a year is not far off senior roles. (However, a lot of roles are also much lower).

Not too far of but 20% is still significant, and I think even so it would be mostly the top you can get from local companies. Even the Novo/Lego type companies are pretty stingy on IC compensation. There's limited upside, and startups are very far away IMO.

You get some upside wrt work/life balance. But very limited flexibility in other ways. And culture-wise it's another can of worms.

Generally speaking it's better to work for foreign companies here.

Sorry but where are you finding these jobs outside of MAANG?

scale-ups, some well funded startups, big companies for some roles if you add up bonus, pension, other benefits.

Not too many options tbh, and you need a bit of luck, but there are some. It's hard to figure out from the job description so you usually need to do a bit of digging.

To keep in mind as well is that in Denmark the vast majority of jobs are not advertised. I know it happens everywhere but I never experienced anything that comes even close in other countries.

What used to be fairly popular is "consulting" at 2x+ salary. Almost zero risk due to high demand, this has changed somewhat.

When you say not advertised do you mean not even posted on LinkedIn and you have to go through the company's website yourself?

Not anywhere. Or if it is it's just for show.

People would just bring their friends in, or give them contracts as freelancers. In one instance the us office got involved and stopped it. I've been in a few "mock" interviews.

They call it trust in Denmark, I call it nepotism.

That's why loads of top talent end up disappearing into the realms of Google, Uber, Microsoft or Databricks Denmark. Whether this is a good thing (they get paid well but the US gets the outputs of their labour) is another matter.

It is possible though to get paid a more reasonable rate in DK (which imo is good) and living in Denmark does not guarantee a huge pay cut / local companies don't suppress tech salaries into oblivion, even if the only saving grace is foreign offices.

There's a general obsession on GDP and salary numbers that is a bit myopic. Let's say in country A people drop their kids by car at school, while country B the kids go by themselves at school by foot. All other things being equal, the higher expenses on gas and cars will show up as higher GDP for country A, which will in turn be considered 'wealthier'. But is it really ? Likewise for salaries, the higher number hides what it is expended for, maybe you'll need to expend a lot more to be able to live in a high quality of life neighbourhood.

Oh totally. Coming from the States, where our costs included two cars, healthcare out of pocket expenses, daycare, etc and coming to DK where, yes, taxes are high, but we have zero cars, zero healthcare costs, etc.

if you consider tax of 45% "zero cost" yes...

My effective rate of taxation is close to 40-50% here in India. I doubt I get one tenth the benefit. Rampant corruption, abysmal infrastructure, no rule of law...I could go on.

One of the owners of my company moved to France for a few years. Which was important because if he stayed in the US he would have had to get an outside job instead of working for the company. That would have been bad.

It was all because child expenses and healthcare.

That... is a fascinating way to put it. Huh. I'll have to think about that.

What good is "more" money if you have a terrible quality of life quotient? I mean, do you feel your employers are exploiting your labor? Are you anxious about how your family will afford to send two kids to university? Surprise medical bills ruining you financially? Likely not...

Perhaps this is an intentional tradeoff that in some way leads to trusting.

I visited 2 years ago, it made me rethink everything I thought about society.

The parliament has no guards, you can just walk in and talk to one of your representatives. Who BTW all biked there, evidenced by all the bikes outside. 95%+ of people look to be thin and fit. Everyone looks happy.

A common misconception is that the Danes success is their system. I like how this article frames it around trust, because that is really the core issue. The system is almost irrelevant if you have decent,honorable people participating in it.

You can have a system that produces decent, honorable people, and systems that do the exact opposite

true, but as long as we're talking about a democratic society. it would be improbable that kind of people decide on a counterproductive system.

Dane here: Left Denmark (DK) though. It is true that social security in DK is world best. And salaries are high compared to EU standards. Also that leaving babys on the street is probably safe. However the article seems to paint a rather rosy picture. DK has a dark side that no one talks about like "Jante Law", extremely feminine values (good if you like that - very bad if you dont), exclusive culture, very bad climate! Great place to work and have kids - if you stay inside and "play along".

There's a very weird dynamic between Jante Law and Danish Exceptionalism. The fact that Denmark is at the bottom of the list for expats should give some perspective.

It's a good country to live in, but I think a lot of these positive articles online about hygge, happines, copenhagen, benefits, trust; really avoid talking about the bad sides and how soul crushing it can be.

https://www.internations.org/expat-insider/2023/nordic-count...

The Law of Jante seems to have less effect now than when I grew up. People are much more encouraging of entrepreneurs in my little home town, and cheering each other on. Of course, there's still pockets of discouragement, and it's worse in small towns than big cities.

The common factor in all high trust societies seems to be that they are culturally homogenous.

Denmark is not culturally homogenous and it wasnt histocally.

Denmark values cultural homogeneity enough to mandate that children over the age of one in high-immigrant areas formally designated as ghettoes attend 25 hours per week of public daycare including instruction in "democracy, equality and major Danish holidays such as Christmas" under the threat of losing government benefits [1]. By western standards, this strikes me as a strong commitment to cultural homogeneity.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1IT1EN/

Nah, thats not Denmark, thats a particular racist government

Voted in by the Danish people.

Let me introduce into the concept of the national minority of Germans and also Jews live in Danmark. (Both aren't typical Danish culture). Do you know the concept of national minorities?

Denmark?

Culturally homogeneous?

I'm not sure you've actually been to Denmark. Culturally homogeneous is not what I would call it.

I'm interested in what you're comparing against. Denmark is typically towards the bottom of any measure of cultural or ethnic diversity - e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_et...

I have been to Denmark many times and it strikes me as considerably more homogenous than the UK or the US.

It's funny how little time it takes to go from "cultural" to "ethnic". Say what you think instead of using whistles: you think that Denmark conforms to your racially focused worldview, that it's "pure", or whatever. Am I correct?

Funnily enough, Denmark is a few places below France in "ethnic fractionalization", yet somehow, racists worldwide insist that France has become a shithole because of immigration.

It’s not a “whistle.” Culture is virtually co-extensive with ethnicity in most places in the world. I come from a country whose name literally just translates into “country of $ethnic_group.” To the point where the largest country in the world, China, has lumped myriad different populations into the ethnic grouping of “Han Chinese” to cultivate cultural uniformity.

> a country whose name literally just translates into “country of $ethnic_group.”

FYI, this is the case with Denmark as well (as long as you permit Dane to be an ethnic group)

Is Denmark named after Danes or are Danes named after Denmark.

And "England" - land of the Angles (whence is derived the Anglo- part of Anglo-Saxon).

I'm not sure what the complaint is here. I don't mind saying outright that I believe ethnicity is deeply intertwined with culture and that the two concepts are inseperable. Ethnic groups are essentially defined by their shared heritage, experiences and culture. When we talk about cultural diversity, we inevitably also discuss the ethnic diversity of a population.

I really don't think that is a controversial position, but clearly you disagree.

Might be relative to your baseline, but it's one of the most common complaints I hear among immigrants.

Not only that but the huge social pressure to conform especially in work settings.

Not necessarily fully homogeneous, but with a pretty wide common base.

To trust someone is to predict their actions in a number of the most important aspects, and these actions must be in agreement with your values and expectations. It's most easily achieved when the key values are shared, and even easier when cultural backgrounds are also shared. (It, of course, works if you trust people like yourself, which is not always the case, curiously. Moscow, Russia is about as diverse a place as NYC, but with a markedly lower level of trust.)

It cannot by homogeneity by itself. Poland, my home country, is homogeneous, but in a shitty way.

There's a different type of homogeneity I think people are referring to.

My experience is not proof of anything, I get that. But I've worked closely with both danish and polish people and there's something to be said about a certain type of "danishness". I can't really articulate it, however it's the largest complain I hear. I would compare it to being in a cult (having never been in a cult though). Personally I find it very weird.

So are a lot of African countries.

It's culture.

Scandinavian cultures consistently rank the best.

I disagree. Switzerland is another example of a high-trust society yet roughly a quarter of its residents are foreign. A majority of those foreigners are from the EU/EFTA but if you think that means they're culturally homogenous, I challenge you to feed a German pizza to an Italian or give someone from Suisse romande a Gipfeli and tell them it's a croissant.

I'm not accusing you of this in particular but a common pattern I see is Americans making comments like this because they assume that homogeneity of ethnicity or race means homogeneity of culture. There are in fact very large differences, resulting in conflicts such as WWI and WWII. Things aren't peaceful because everyone is the same, they're peaceful because people have learned to live together peacefully despite those differences.

Is there more homogeneity in their values instead of saying culture?

But the word "culture" is what was used. Not the word "values".

There can be a discussion about whether or not "values" would be a better term. I think that's fair. But switching to a discussion based on values moves the goal posts a bit and we should acknowledge that fact.

I consider them both to be fairly interchangeable in this context, it's obvious that crime isn't linked to whether someone prefers croissants or bratwurst.

So by "homogeneous" you don't really mean homogeneous, you mean upstanding people who don't commit a lot of crime or problems?

Eastern Europe is much more homogeneous than western Europe, there is also more crime and problems there, so I don't see a strong link between the two at all.

I think it's both. If you have two communities that believe they are acting in an upstanding manner, but both have different values, then neither trusts the other.

I do also think though that some cultures, religions etc have "better" moral standards.

The choice to deemphasize the differences is part of the culture that's being spoken of here. Eastern Europe went through the same world wars as Western Europe and yet many parts of it are or recently were still riven with ethnic conflict. The Danes and Swiss, especially the native-born and -raised ones, but also those who've joined and assimilated by choice, have broad agreement on the questions of societal organization, conflict resolution, etc. That is a cultural fabric which many other countries lack and which may not always be there even in Denmark and Switzerland.

I'm British, not American.

The culture I am speaking of here is not whether Italians put pineapples on pizza or not.

There's a thin line between trusting and gullible, and the difference may be hard to perceive for outsiders.

Trusting and gullible alike also means easily exploitable, especially when coupled with hospitality which (believe it or not!) is, or at least was, a core value in DK. This whole line of reasoning has been very visible for the average Dane throughout the past 3-4 decades, as non-Danes have aquired larger shares of the general residency.

The general rule of "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" has not really been observed at all by a significant fraction of those visiting or relocating to the country. And the Danes do notice that, although a fraction of the populace choose to wear the rosy-coloured glasses at all costs because principle, culture, tradition (culture matters a lot in DK, the culture is fairly conservative even though most Danes will deny that they themselves are).

The "trust" that non-Danish media likes to herald now is just a shadow of what it was, and it is steadily albeit slowly on the decline - especially in Dane-foreigner relationships IMHO.

If you dislike the facts, feel free to dismiss this as anecdata.

This sounds a lot like small midwestern towns, at least a few decades ago.

Has it changed? My medium term goal is to move to a small town in a state like Nebraska. In my limited experience, I found the region as cozy as my current place in the far north of Sweden but without the humongous government.

I don't know. I phrased it like that due to lack of data.

Has it changed?

Yes.

I'd say it's like years being designated BC and AD.

Small town midwest is now Before Opiods and After Opiods. Choose your future small town carefully, and don't be bothered by how many feelings you hurt. It's about what you want for you and your family. Not about validating a narrative. You really do want to stay away from certain areas. At least, that's how it is here in Wisconsin.

Anecdata: One day my sister was taking my niece to school and my niece said from her car seat, "Look Mom! A dead body." My sister looked over and sure enough, cops and ambulance, and they were just covering the deceased. OD.

Point of this story is not really that there was an OD in small town Wisconsin. Small town Wisconsin is where you'd expect OD's to happen nowadays. The point is my niece was so familiar with this kind of thing that she could spot a dead body at 4 or 5 years old.

Not good man.

> Has it changed?

a-yup, sure has. I've seen it.

Wages are stagnant and meth is everywhere. The smart ones left to chase jobs and the remainder who aren't hitting the pipe regularly are deep into MLMs. Everyone -- like, everyone -- drives trucks, and will probably never be able to retire because of it.[1]

The remainder are getting older, more religious, more conservative, and more reactionary, and that translates to terrible schools and poorly maintained roads. The educated folks coming back from college look at that and, even if they can get jobs in town, aren't keen to live there.

[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/americans-love-affair-with...

Interesting, will read Gert Tinggaard Svendsen's research.

French passerbys: for a similar study on why France is particularly lacking trust, see CEPREMAP / Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc (2007) La société de défiance - Comment le modèle social français s’autodétruit. It's been too long since I last read it for me to be able to summarize it in English, so I won't. Here's the free PDF, in French: https://www.cepremap.fr/depot/opus/OPUS09.pdf .

a perfect example of a society based on trust. the opposite example is one based on kinship.

> Adults who trust each other not to steal babies go on to trust one another around older children playing unsupervised.

Such delusion to think we could have a society where people don’t steal babies the moment they are left unattended. I bet they’re not even worried about a passerby taking candy from them too.

In the US leaving your baby unsupervised is likely to result in someone calling CPS and a bunch of trouble for you.

So while the chance of having your child kidnapped is vanishingly small, there are enough busybodies who believe the chance is high to result in the same net effect: you can't leave your baby unattended.

That's a problem due to the American peoples acceptance of authoritarian policing; something that would be inconceivable in more enlightened countries.

In Germany you are arrested for home schooling. Different cultures have their flaws.

Why would that be considered a flaw? The rationale behind it is the same as behind the inability to name your child XAe or any random assortment of letters – to not make the future difficult for your child, even if you as a parent might want it. It is also one of the last tools that prevents parallel societies from forming. Not that German schools are ideal - they are a bit stuck in the past - but the common experience they create in each new generation is valuable.

Because my children are likely going to have ADHD like I do, and public schools are hell for us. When I was a child I cried every day, hated my parents and didn't understand what did I do that I deserved to be forced into that prison. I am not going to put my children through that. I don't care about your social engineering goals, I care about happy childhood for my children.

You might consider alternative schools like Waldorf or Montessori for your kids. It's not like there is only one kind of school available.

These legally operate as groups of homeschooled children where I live, and there actually is only one kind of "school". Yes, I'm considering that. One thing I definitely don't want is an "institution" that feels like it's entitled to do or require children to do whatever it wants, even if it has generally enlightened opinions and methods. If my child can't come at all for half a year, that's what will happen.

I agree, and in some countries it does feel like your children get 'institutionalized'. Still, even there, there are differences between schools. What my parents did was to visit the schools, talk to the teachers, see whether they had a good or a bad feeling, and insisting on getting me into a specific class. It does work, but of course all the schools and classes should ideally be good.

That's a good thing to do for sure. The problem is - my parents did that, and visited more than once, but every time they did, the teachers put up an act of being larger than life and the most enlightened experts of child development under the sun. Unfortunately, they believed them because the act was so good, and because years of life under communism taught them that going against institutions leads you to bad places.

I don't have the latter problem - I got the opposite problem from that, sometimes I hate the system a little bit too much - but still, remembering how the teachers used to threaten us if we don't put up our best act, meaning never speak out about the lies they told when other parents visited, I can't really trust few visits to give me an accurate impression.

Diversity of thought helps solve problems. It’s useful for the state to allow a small % of experimentation to reduce risk.

> It is also one of the last tools that prevents parallel societies from forming.

Consider German history. They had the Nazis in power. Half of Germany had the Communists in power. So, you don't want Nazis and Communists home schooling their kids - you want those kids in regular school, where they can be taught about democracy and human rights. But if the Nazis or Communists are in power, you absolutely want to be able to homeschool, rather than have that garbage beat into your kids day after day at school.

So given their history, I can absolutely see why they should be afraid of home schooling. But I can also see why they should want the freedom to do it.

From my experience with attending four schools in two countries - it is often the quality and the personality of the teacher that influences what I was learning, not so much the curriculum. I see very little chance for radical thought being taught at German schools, unless 70%+ of school teachers get replaced.

Home schooling is linked to religious extremism

If one was affected by the 80’s news cycle, it will seem that way in one’s head.

aha. Which assumption do you have about me ? Which 80s news cycle? Where?

Why does one think only one's news cycle from one's 80s leads one to think one will associate one's homeschooling with one's religious extremism?

as is facial hair, bro. unsubstantiated factoids are not a contribution.

Norway’s child protective services has 17 convictions against themselves and counting in the International Human Rights Court of Strasbourg.

That's just another dimension of the problem.

But let's be honest here, there are a lot of child snatches in the US. About 150 to 160 new reports yearly per 100000 kids. By comparison, Denmark annually reports between 50 to 75 new missing child cases per 100000 children.

(And even that obscures the starkness of the difference. Because in Denmark, they count children abducted to another country by a parent as a missing child if the country they are abducted to is a member of the convention. So you actually have to subtract about 35 to 40 cases per 100000 children from the Denmark numbers to get an apples to apples comparison to the US numbers. I just wanted to present the numbers in a fashion as friendly to your view as possible. And still there is a pretty stark difference.)

Aren't many cases of missing children in the US also abductions by a parent?

They aren't counted as missing children cases. That's "parental abduction" according to FBI stats. And also get special handling due to the convention if it's international.

Isn’t the same true of familial versus stranger abductions in the US? Like the vast majority are familial, correct?

If a parent takes them internationally, that goes into a different bucket in the FBI stats. (Maybe because of the convention? Since those get special handling.)

But if a parent takes them and they stay in the US, they will count as child abductions. Domestic family abduction is about 4.5% of the total in the US. Not the majority, but they do get the focus. What I mean by that is that if you look at Amber Alerts, about 58% are evoked by family abductions. So that's a huge asymmetry. 58% of Amber Alerts, but only 4.5% of missing kids. I think in the case of family abduction maybe you know about the abduction faster? So you report it faster? Not sure. I just always thought that was a huge asymmetry.

EDIT:

I just realized I didn't directly answer your question.

No. The majority are not familial.

I've heard this a few times before. Admittedly I'm not that familiar with Denmark. Lets check out the livability.

GDP is okish; has signs of foreign influence or some sort of financial crisis.

2.5% unemployment is fantastic. 75% participation and steadily climbing, elderly going back to work?

https://www.populationpyramid.net/denmark/2020/

Wow, only 5 million people? Toronto has more people. Though yes elderly going back to work.

Central bank is very healthy.

Interest rates went negative a little bit. Seemingly 0% typically? Hence the elderly going back to work.

Their government didnt print a bunch of money?

~250% private debt to gdp is high, housing crisis?

excellent balance of trade.

!!! government debt to gdp is below 30% holy smokes!

Big boost to military spending

Household debts to gdp below 100%, but not by much. That's ok.

60% housing ownership isnt great. Housing bubble crashing most likely with high private debt to gdp, high rates. Likely priced their own people out of the market; forcing the bubble to crash.

55% personal income tax rate? Yikes! 25% sales tax, 22% corporate tax. Those are some insane taxes.

Most of Europe has similar taxation. They get a lot for their money though. Public transport and health. I would live in Denmark in a heartbeat, have visited so many times as a digital nomad.

But I'd have to go work for a tech company there or convince them that whatever startup I want to have a go at next is enough to be accepted by the startup visa (complicated).

If anyone from Denmark or Sweden (which I love as well) reads this and wants someone with 20+ YOE in tech (programming, startups) do get in contact, my details are on my profile.

> Most of Europe has similar taxation.

Countries like Czechia or France have lower income tax (5%-10% less)

France's top rate is 0.5% points lower.

Denmark is average for the EU (much less than France) once you account for the employee taxes in France.

Note: I've left it too late to edit the above, but I probably shouldn't have suggested contacting me. I would LOVE to live in Denmark or Sweden, but it probably wouldn't be possible this year (due to commitments I've made to customers).

> 55% personal income tax rate? Yikes! 25% sales tax, 22% corporate tax. Those are some insane taxes.

Yes, insane. It's the kind of stat that you should question while reading, and before writing.

> 55% personal income tax rate? Yikes! 25% sales tax, 22% corporate tax. Those are some insane taxes.

They do have a tax reduction scheme, but you need an obscene salary for DK standards: https://www.bdo.dk/en-gb/insights/tax-and-vat/27-percent-tax...

> 55% personal income tax rate?

That's not really correct. It is more like 36%. And also it is more complicated than that, as the more you earn the higher it gets, but it's roughly around 36%. The 55% is for example for secondary incomes, etc. what we call a B-kord

Yes, 55% is the top of the tax progression.

People on B-kort still get their deductions (Just paid back after the fiscal year is done).

You pay the 55% on:

1. salary earned on the top of the progressions hierarchy

2. When you work anonymously (Ie. you need a CPR number to get you deductions)

At a salary of ~150k USD (DKK 1m) you would pay 40% in tax - not too far away from NY or SF.

My sister is in SF, and even though she nominally makes a little more than I do, I end up having much more disposable income, and can afford a lot more things, which is ... weird feeling

You mention the elderly a couple of times:

1. Pension ag is currently 69 with a renegotiation to raise it to 73 coming up. 2. Schemes has been installed to allow retired people to keep their public pensions while working.

In essence: Nobody are being forced into the labor market, but a lot of pensioners are choosing to + retirement age is increasing.

People like to mention the lower income taxes for higher income brackets in the USA but in some places there you pay a lot of property tax. If you make a nice salary you probably have a nice house, and in some places you'll pay a lot of property tax, especially if you live in a location that is popular like Miami. https://www.tax-rates.org/florida/miami-dade_county_property...

https://www.tax-rates.org/taxtables/property-tax-by-state

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