What is it like to live in Scandinavia?

[Glitterbiscuits]

DH and I are having a debate.

He says Scandinavian countries are the most developed socially, economically and in regard to the environment, equality, etc. He assumes there is not much poverty or homelessness in Scandinavian countries. He thinks the high taxes leads to good public services such as transport.

Is his positive view justified?

I never said no restrictions... I see vast amounts of untapped potential, including for knowledge exchange.

Getting back to Scandinavia... attitudes to environmental protection are interesting, and opportunities for closeness to the natural world are great. There is proper serious landscape and weather.

Petty, but I also love the bakeries and the berries.

You do you but not a road the Scandinavian countries will persue I guess.

I am quite intrigued by the Scandinavian/Nordic countries. They are our near neighbours, but most of us here in the UK probably have little understanding of what makes them tick. I have a vague memory of hearing on a radio programme a few years ago that Finland had pretty much eradicated street homelessness. As someone who lives somewhere that has most definitely not eradicated street homelessness, that sounded impressive to me! But I've spent precisely one day in Finland, so interested to hear from anyone who knows the country well, do you see people sleeping on the streets in Finland or would that be very unusual?

Well many things are lovely but you have to deal with dark winters and light summers and sorry to burst his bubble but there’s definitely homelessness, an underclass, alcoholism etc- we came across a church handing out food to homeless people on a recent holiday in Sweden. Like with many things in life, pluses and minuses, at least petrol is cheaper there!

Finland is Nordic, not Scandinavian...and very different.

I have been to every Scandinavian country apart from Norway. Finland would be my favourite. Sweden is beautiful but the people so abrupt. Denmark, people a bit warmer. I wouldn't live in a Scandinavian country personally. The people are just too cold and no craic IMO. Also very intolerant and racist!

I’ve got a good friend whose husband is Swedish and they have a home there. She loves Sweden in short bursts but finds it a bit boring and provincial with very set ways of doing things. They have many amazing parties and the Swedish certainly seem to like to drink. A lot! They live mostly here in London and brought their children up here even though neither of them is English. She would never choose to live full time in Sweden.

I would like to know this too. I'm a born and raised Copenhagener, and I can't think of an area of my city I'd be scared to walk in at night 🤔

Finland is the only EU country where homelessness has consistently decreased. The success is entirely driven by the Housing First project introduced around 2008.
Homeless are immediately given a permanent apartment with a standard rental lease. They also receive tailored social, medical and psychological support. The result has been long term street homelessness has been nearly eradicated across the country.

The model has been highly successful for native Finns but the demographics of homelessness in Finland have shifted significantly in recent years. Refugees and migrants now make up a disproportionate percentage of the homeless population particularly in the Helsinki and the project is under pressure but still carried out.

Attitudes around nudity and the human body are more open and accepting; I fight a little shy of sauna culture, but wish I could leap in. Women can be very strong as well as stylish. Conversation can be blunt, but I like that.

It is also Nordic. Not Scandinavian. Historically has had tense relations with both Sweden and Russia wanting in.

All Scandinavian countries are Nordic but not all Nordic countries are Scandinavian.
Great fun right.

Interesting to have a country showing that homelessness is not a fact of life, but something that can be eradicated if the political will is there.

It has become harder I guess as more
non native Finns are on the streets now but yes it is another approach.
Apparently not more expensive in the end of day than traditional ways of handling homelessness.
I can read basic Finnish and it's a project most Finnish media and politicians speak positively about.

Loved n Sweden - Swedes are very reserved and closed to non Swedes. Very family and work focus and little time for others outside that.
Also, yes issues with gang culture and organised crime, used to be just in major cities but spreading all over now.
It remains a beautiful country and Swedish furniture- not the ikea stuff but the traditional- is beautiful

The Finnish homelessness project is based on the principle that if someone has a home they then have a base to access health support, training and work. None of those things are possible if you are living on the streets. The security provided helps people to rebuild their lives as needed.

I agree with her having lived in Copenhagen for 2 years 2020 to 2022 - personally I loved it - we came back for reasons outside my control by and used to go to Sweden a lot too - it was noticeable in our very nice local family area how little seemed to be going on if you had babies and toddlers( never say things like tumble tots or gymboree ) etc-. and having spoken to people in my coworking centre it seemed to be because they had 8.15 to 4 - 15 working , very reasonable childcare and an expectation of men doing their bit too and flexing hours that most women simply went back to work and utilised nursery at the 6 month plus stage- there are bonuses to this - far less claiming benefits ir top ups, far less women vulnerable to relationship breakdown , Denmark also allocate flats to Danes on social housing and you could keep and rent out if living elsewhere - ( this is what others told me) it’s just a different set up , it’s high tax, high services, no council tax, cheap childcare, good public transport, slightly lower utilities- a very collaborative way of working from what I saw, lots of provided team lunch round a table( fab ones too) it wouldn’t be for everyone- in general it’s diverse in some ways but a lot of diversity at lower income jobs, , but it’s not what I saw in office environments, I always described it like a giant Waitrose with odd pockets of dodginess - in Denmark there is no Amazon, no Uber- they don’t allow it-they believe it keeps the high streets more vibrant by not allowing Amazon . Danes are very much Denmark for the Danes and Sweden quite similar, however it’s not something that’s expressed openly apart from maybe 10% of hard right wingers , it’s more an in the head thing , and mainly considered unacceptable -.In many ways I really miss it - no one does cozy candlelit winters like the scandis !! Xmas lights on our street and in trees up till mid Feb!!

I've lived in Finland for nearly 20 years now, homelessness has definitely been reduced a lot since the housing first policy but not eradicated. You don't see people sleeping on the street though, they'll be couch surfing or sleeping in shelters. Immigrants are more likely to be homeless, perhaps because they don't know how to access help or are wary of seeking it (especially if they've been denied asylum but not yet sent home, or visa run out or something like that). You see beggers on the streets in the cities but those tend to be organised beggar gangs, usually coming from Romania.

I struggled with naked sauna culture at first (I was used to it with family when little but not post-puberty) but now I'm very comfortable with it (so long as its female only, I've been to mixed saunas at work but I wear a towel then)

Who has?

Which is a good definition of Reform voters too...

I hear you! Many EU countries are run like the Mafia and no one bats an eyelid.

This is quite interesting
https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2025

No where is perfect that's for sure

Well nowheres perfect, and somewhere that suits person A might not suit person B.

We live in Sweden, we really like it. Our childcare is very cheap, if we used it fulltime it would be about £85 a month. School dinners are free universally, I know like the UK quality varies hugely, our childrens school has very good food available, obviously that isn’t the food our son picks most days! One thing that did surprise is that fuel is cheaper here, I wasn’t expecting anything to be cheaper than in the UK.

We have found it easier to find family friendly work, we both work part time, something that surrpised me as well is that our employers pay towards our gym membership. During the summer school holidays it is normal for lots of industries to pause as so many people are on holiday, that took some getting used to. I was also able to have free swedish lessons which was very useful to help my written swedish as it was awful.

With income and property taxes we pay a very similar amount of tax that we paid in the UK, but we get much more for it, in the UK our childcare was more per day than it is per month here.

It took me a long time to get used to buying alcohol from certain places, I do find that a pain.

One thing that would make some MNers shit a brick, our childrens school is just open, including the playground, you can just walk through it. Playgrounds at schools that are fenced are usually available to the public outside of school hours.

There are mini Ikeas! Like at metro stations and things, I still find that a novelty.