The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

by Michael Booth

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Norway’s social structure is the fact that about a third of all Norwegians of working age do nothing at all. More than a million of them live on money from the state, the majority of them pensioners, but also a sizable number (340,000) on disability, unemployment, or sickness benefits—proportionally the largest number in Europe. The picture is equally worrying for Norwegian children, who rank below the European average in terms of literacy, mathematics, and sciences, with the trend worsening over the last ten years. With a striking lack of self-irony, the Norwegian media is often heard to complain that “all young people want to do these days is be something in the media.”