Why denmark is bad

At first glance, the persistence of such principles seems to be corroborated by media stories and daily conversations about the shortfalls of the current system. Nevertheless, the reality amounts to an effective abandonment of these principles. Such moralizing about the problems of the welfare state fails to translate into practical change on the ground; criticisms find little foothold in current policies, since on the surface these policies supposedly remain in line with founding principles.

Therein lies the problem: on paper, current welfare policies live up to the principle of providing for the social welfare of all; however, in practice, the policies do not amount to a substantive welfare system. Such a failure is evident in the March report on the need for an equal opportunity policy in Copenhagen, developed by the Danish Institute of Human Rights in collaboration with the Municipality of Copenhagen.

This finding is only a small-scale snapshot of the larger issue plaguing the Danish welfare system: policies that purport on paper to fulfill the social imperatives mentioned earlier, but do not in fact achieve such goals. Another explanation for the inconsistency between the discomforting realities of the Danish welfare system and its supposed principles may be found in the manner in which public discourse frames the discussion.

Although people in Denmark may not have explicitly abandoned these founding principles, their discussions on the topic betray an implicit reformulation of these principles. In , the government-established Social Commission justified limits on unemployment benefits and a higher qualifying retirement age by pointing to articles in the Constitution providing for a reciprocal obligation between state and citizen. According to this obligation, the state will provide public support, but the citizen is obliged to work if able to do so.

This emphasis on reciprocal obligations has evidently become ingrained in the discourse on welfare in Danish society. Although this policy effectively targets immigrants and discourages them from coming to Denmark, it is framed not as a policy for limiting immigration, but rather a policy for inspiring people to find jobs. As such, published research on the Start-Help policy selectively reports that more people find jobs when they are given the lower Start-Help benefit than when given the normal level of benefits.

What remains unreported, lurking in the fine print of those articles, is the percentage of people who remain dependent on benefits and must live on lower-than-average benefit allowances. By strategically focusing on the statistical success of the policy, this kind of analysis overshadows—even ignores—the thousands of people who are effectively rejected by Danish society and must struggle to get by on substantially lower benefits.

Crime is high. The terms of employment are being made progressively more shitty. But for the expat, the main concern is: Will I experience happiness and enjoyment? The answer is: Unless you put an extraordinary level of effort into entertaining yourself: No. The language barrier is a serious impediment to happiness. You should speak Danish. Then there is the thorny question of social interactions. If you are coming to Denmark to marry a Dane or for study, you might be OK.

It can be a lottery. Even very outgoing, friendly people who have had no problem making friends anywhere else, can find it hard to make friends in the Danish community. This is partly because they often do not speak Danish well enough to develop a friendship, but mostly because Danes are just not that into us.

Studying is a special case. Your classmates, even if they are Danish, might not come from the city and are just as interested in making new friends as the international students.

Whether it is or not, makes no difference. The upshot is, you are not going to the cinema with your Danish course mates, and so your friends will naturally end up being people who remember to communicate in a language you understand when making social plans.

Danes do not tend to make a lot of new friends of any background after they finish their studies. If you go to a party with two groups of Danes who know the host from two different places say: badminton club and sailing club , it is unlikely these groups will blend.

Everyone at the party is the type you might get back home where the guest is just too shy to go talk to others and must wait for other guests to come to them.

If everyone is like that, no one is coming to anyone. Why did you come? Scandinavia is Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The Nordic countries are Scandinavia plus Finland and Iceland. Is tipping expected in Denmark? Tip jar No, but it is not uncommon. Is it legal to buy cannabis? German Reichstag 9. Is it true that Danish is a branch of German? Oh boy. Be careful. It will not go down well if you assume that we are some kind of Germans.

Are there any famous Danes? Of course. What do you think is the most confusing thing about Denmark? Let us and others know what you think:. Want to visit Go on our Grand Inner city tour Book now. Let others know about this page:. About Hamlet Tours. Grand Day Trip. Inner City Tour. We offer the perspective that the combination of rapid response from the government, trust and a high level of confidence in government by Danish citizens, and the importance of social heritage contributed to the effective management of the coronavirus crisis.

Denmark is the southernmost Scandinavian country, a prosperous and thriving nation of 5. Denmark is one of the oldest states in Europe, having achieved independence nearly years ago.

Its political system is a constitutional monarchy which combines its history and traditions with all the features of an extremely modern democratic state. Denmark is a developed, industrialised country where the state and other public authorities exercise considerable regulatory control in the social sphere, providing comprehensive services and benefits to all citizens.

By international standards, Denmark has one of the highest standards of living, and the differences between rich and poor are historically smaller than in many of the countries with which it is traditionally compared. Whereas most other European countries are still under intensive lockdown as of May 1 due to the Covid crisis, Denmark slowly started re-opening its society and industry two weeks ago in mid-April.

This observation raises some interesting questions about the handling of the crisis by the politicians and citizens: what are the geographical, demographical and societal factors that explain why and how Denmark and other Scandinavian countries such as Norway or Finland seem to have handled this coronavirus crisis better than other countries?

How did other similar sized countries, also located in Europe and with comparable levels of wealth and resources, end up with starkly different Covid outcomes? As of May 1 , while the entire world is being hard hit by a novel emerging coronavirus, Denmark had a total of cases and deaths, whereas other countries such as Switzerland, roughly similar in size and population and only km distance from Denmark, have already accumulated three times more cases and deaths.

However, the fast response of the government and the rapid handling of the crisis is not the only element explaining the success of this small kingdom in dealing with the pandemic. Indeed, other factors also contributed to the low rate of confirmed cases and deaths throughout the country.

In the next section, we discuss some of these factors from the perspective of the expatriate author, an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University who relocated to Denmark in and is currently involved in Covid research.

Geographically, Denmark consists of a peninsula of 1, islands, of which 78 are inhabited. As a consequence, Denmark has a long coastline of around 7, km, but only one kilometre land border with Germany, thus naturally orienting the country towards the south, both economically and politically. Its geographic positioning as a peninsula, sharing only one short border with Germany, a large European country that has also dealt well with the crisis, as well as the rapid lockdown by the Danish government, are certainly critical points that contributed to limiting the viral spread.

By comparison, Switzerland shares borders with five countries - France to the west, Germany to the north, Austria and Liechtenstein to the east and Italy to the south - and amongst these countries, France and Italy have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic. It is notable however that the vast majority of Covid cases were effectively imported by Danish ski tourists returning from Northern Italy and Austria mainly; only a few cases came from foreigners crossing international borders, thus questioning the precise impact of closing of the borders.

Demographically, the 5. The population is not especially young with a median age of