When Jade and I talk about our experience in Sweden, our family and friends often end up asking us the following question – why is Sweden so happy?

This fascination with happiness does not come from anywhere. On the contrary. As public policy experts look for new ways of measuring progress, the notion of happiness gained a lot of popularity. Naturally, the question that arises is how to measure this happiness.

Herein the annually published World Happiness Index (WHI) is one of the measurements with the largest publicity. The UN-General Assembly established this index 10 years ago to measure human progress not solely based on economic growth. This index measures happiness based on individualized scores of life-satisfaction which can be averaged and compared across countries. The associaiton between Sweden and happiness comes from the Nordic countries’ high ranking in the WHI index (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland).

What is Sweden doing differently?

So here is the burning question. What are the Scandinavian countries, and especially Sweden, doing differently? In 2020 a group of Scandinavian scientists tried to answer this call. They reviewed the latest scientific literature in the field of happiness research. In their analysis, they pointed to the following two characteristics of Scandinavian countries:

• Welfare State Generosity: The Scandinavian countries have a universalist aspiration in which everyone should live a similar life independent of wealth background. This shows in particular in the organization of the public health system. 
• Freedom to make life choices: Scandinavian countries have the material security to make free and independent life choices. This shows for example in the generous parental leave.

In this article, I will look deeper into these two explanations that answer the question of why is Sweden so happy. For this, I will contrast them with Jade and my experience of living in Sweden.

Why is Sweden so happy – Welfare State Generosity

“Welfare State Generosity” is the first key explanation of why is Sweden so happy. Herein, the Swedish health system is a striking example of the universalist aspiration of the welfare system.

In our experience, this aspiration comes with some positive and negative sides. This dialectic becomes most evident in the healthcare system. Throughout our time in Sweden, Jade and I had multiple contacts with the Swedish primary healthcare system. In any non-life-threatening situations, the procedure of getting a doctor’s appointment is very monotonous. We are going to try to transcribe this as best we can, so buckle up.

• Step 1: call the primary health care centers called Vårdcentralen. Every Swedish person is automatically registered in one based on their residency (it is possible to change though).
• Step 2: Explain your problem to the operator. Surprise – they’re just a receptionist. They will schedule a second phone call where you will be able to speak to a nurse.
• Step 3: a nurse calls you and asks you for your Swedish identity number.
  • Option 1: if you miss the call, game over, you have the privilege to go back to step 1.
  • Option 2: if you don’t have a Swedish identity number, you will have to go in person to any Vårdcentralen to create a temporary one.
• Step 4: if they think that unprescribed medication from the pharmacy cannot treat your sickness, they will book you an appointment with one of their general practitioner. Pro-tip from us: it helps if you cry a little on the phone.
• Step 5: yay, you got an appointment! Once you get there, you always have to pay 200kr (with some exceptions). After this, the general doctors decide if they book you a follow-up appointment or if they refer you to specialists in the bigger hospitals.  

The scientific explanation

Based on this detailed explanation, you can see how regulated and standardized the Swedish healthcare system is. Coming from Austria or France, this standardization came as a surprise to us. We were shocked at how much power the nurses had. They could just decide through the phone if your sickness was severe enough for a doctor’s appointment.

At the same time, this standardization creates a healthcare system in which the private healthcare system is not very relevant. This is different from Austria or France, where you have to pay a lot of money to private doctors to get the best and fastest treatments. In Sweden, you just have to pay the standardized amount to see a doctor. To sum up, wealth does not matter for the type of treatment you are going to receive. In a good as well as in a bad sense.

It is this combination of welfare benefits and state regulation that researchers use to explain Sweden’s high WHI ranking. For example, a study from 2014 explains differences in WHI ranking (amongst OECD countries) with these two factors. However, these welfare benefits and state regulations not only refer to the healthcare system, but also to most parts of everyday life. Famous examples in that regard are the generous family support, the education system, and the pension system.

Why is Sweden so happy – Freedom to Make Life Choices

Another powerful explanation for Swedish happiness is that Swedish citizens have great freedom in making independent life choices. Jade and I made the following observation just shortly after we moved to Sweden:

It is a sunny Tuesday morning in September and Jade and me are sitting on a park bench. While we have a conversation we look at the passing people and we see many parents walking with their children through the park. But then we look closer and notice something that we are not used to seeing in our home countries. Many of these parents are not women, but what we label as ‘cool dads’. By this, we mean men in their early 30s, wearing overhead headphones, black sunglasses, and a skater cap while they take care of their babies.

And the ‘cool dads’ are literally everywhere in Sweden. Every time we set foot in a park, bam, there they are. This is very different from what we know from Austria and France. The ‘cool dads’ are in fact spending most of their time at the office while the moms or nannies are often the ones taking care of the children.

The scientific explanation

Turning to the scientific literature, we can see that the ‘cool dads’ in the parks are in fact linked to the welfare state institutions. In fact, the welfare state offers generous support for families when it comes to parental leave. At the same time, this support also comes with some regulations. In the case of Sweden, while the parental leave is extended to a total of 480 days (16 months), at least two months must be taken by the father.

In 1997, Sommenstat looked at the outcomes of this regulatory approach. She compared the parental leave system in the USA and Sweden and found out that the Swedish model helps to question the so-called ‘male-breadwinning model’. This model builds on the assumption that the labor sphere is reserved for men while the purpose of women is to take care of children. Our observation of the ‘cool-dad’ phenomenon is indicative of the Swedish state’s success in starting to change this norm. No gender discrimination on their watch!

Lastly, the work of researchers such as Ingelhart et. al. relate this generous welfare state support to the high ranking of these countries in the WHI index. They explain that generous financial support provides individuals “a sense of agency, and freedom” to make their own life decisions. Ultimately, it is this greater ‘sense of free choice’ amongst Scandinavian citizens that explains the high ranking of Scandinavian countries on the WHI index according to the researchers. They do this by using a broad data set on a global scale from 1981 to 2007.

Beyond the Swedish Utopia

The combination of ‘welfare state generosity’ and ‘freedom in making independent life choices’ are two powerful scientific explanations of why Swedes are so happy. As shown in this article, Jade and I also experienced firsthand the consequences of these two explanations. Both the unique healthcare system as well as the ‘cool-dads’ phenomenon will probably stay in our vivid memory also after our time in Sweden.

Besides all of this praise of Scandinavia and Sweden, we should not naively think of it as an utopic place. The limitations of the Swedish utopia already start with the WHI itself. The idea that the Scandinavian countries are the happiest in the world is limited by the narrow definition of happiness by the WHI index. It is important to remember that the WHI’s conceptualization of happiness has its roots in Western philosophy. Particularly the emphasis on “personal and internal aspects” of happiness links the WHI to the so-called European American model of happiness (dating back to the aspiration of the “pursuit of happiness” in the American Declaration of Independence).

Sweden as the Utopia of the West?

Based on this, we can see that the idea of Scandinavian countries as the happiest might not be universal. Let’s rephrase it instead: Scandinavian countries are the happiest according to a Western conceptualization of happiness. Or as some researchers put it: 

The Scandinavian countries rank the highest in the World Happiness Index because they are “the leading example of successful modernization, maximizing prosperity, social solidarity, and political and personal freedom.” (Ingelhart, 2010)

Thus Sweden and the Scandinavian continue to be a role model for countries around the world that aspire to the Western model of happiness. In this Western model, the notion of freedom is key. It is fascinating for me that even in this Western model the material support from others is important. That’s where the generosity of the Scandinavian welfare states becomes so vital. They are an important factor in why Swedes can have a balanced life and make independent life decisions.

What do you think of the Swedish system and what observations can you make with your own country? Thank you for reading!