No country is perfect, but you can work for it on an ongoing basis. I think what is characteristic of my country, Denmark, is a high level of education, and that you must be upgraded in your knowledge throughout life. If your workplace closes, the state goes in and helps to reorganize employees so that they can get jobs in other sectors where there is a lack of work. There is close cooperation between the state, employers and the trade union. But also that there is a great responsibility on employers and trade unions and agreeing on agreements that are responsible. For example, the unions are reluctant with wage demands when there is an economic crisis, conversely when things are going well then there are wage increases. Some years ago, employers moved their factories to Asia because wages are significantly lower there. But they found that low wages are not just a good thing. The braided factories return to Denmark because the workforce is more efficient, can work independently and ensure a good quality in the finished product. Several robots have been brought in for a lot of manual work, but this has only meant overall that productivity has increased and there is a demand for labor. Another important thing is that a full-time working week for a Dane is 37 hours. You must take 5 weeks holiday, fully paid, and there is the possibility of a 6th holiday week. This means that the workforce is rested and has a life outside the workplace, family and interests. Overall, it provides some employees who have mental surplus. There are even companies that have gone over to 4 day week. In my son's company, a normal week is 32 hours. They can work 37 hours. If there are periods when they work extra, it must be taken off so that they come down to the normal number of hours within a month or two. The philosophy behind this is that it costs an employee to go down due to stress. You do not work effectively at all if you get stressed. So that's the focus.

@@AndersGetherSoerensen hello anders. Thanks for your reply. It brought some additional insight for me. Singapore has a supposedly highly educated population too. I said supposedly, because although qualifications are high, these days I feel that highly certified does not mean highly educated. There are still many people here who have great qualifications but terrible general knowledge and poor critical thinking. It has made me think a great deal, recently, about what being highly educated really means. You mentioned responsibility of all parties and that's a very good point. There seems to be a strong emphasis on responsibility to society in the nordic countries, ironically much like what confucianism teaches in East Asian countries. Sadly, corporate culture in Singapore has gone the way of American corporatism (no offence to Americans here), where its profits profits profits on top of everything else. For smaller businesses, the risks are high because of the high costs of rents and capital, so profits are also important for them. And for those that do make it, the bosses feel like they deserve every penny because of how difficult it is to succeed. A statistic I read stated that 7/10 small businesses here fail in the first few years here. As for worker treatment, workers here are sadly treated like economic units, based on my personal experience. Employers want the best value out of every hiree. Its debatable whether this brings about the best outcome for the company and country, but man its tiring. Some politicians argue that because of huge cultural differences, it would be disastrous to adopt the nordic model here as residents will take advantage of its generosity and become lazy. Again, that is very debatable.

You can look that up, income of healthcare workers in Denmark. Then look up the current U.S. model where a large percentage of our medical doctors are on salary with a private equity owned

There's no doubt that Singapore is superior in many ways but the main thing about the Nordic model being discussed is about the system itself not about the countries. In my opinion the Nordic model does trade part of the growth towards society well being and prioritize society over wealth but doesn't disregard the need of growth. The first question for example didn't really get a good answer as the Nordic model usually have very low tax rate while being a very high payed employee has extreme taxes, which makes successful people create their own companies rather than work for a big one. Singapore is extremely wealthy but would the actual model work on a wider scale and more importantly which one would benefit society more? I don't say that Nordic countries are superior but they prioritize differently and in the Nordic model it's not just about growth.

Lukas Hansson The Nordic countries are indeed very successful at generating social and economic prosperity, but face different challenges than what Singapore does, and it could be argued that the Nordic model isn't as suited toward Singapore with its distinct challenges and comparative (dis)advantages. The most obvious thing is that 40% of people in Singapore are immigrants. As such Singapore is one of the most diverse developed countries in the world. The religious diversity in particular is spectacular; 33% are Buddhist, 18.8% Christians and 15% Muslims. Because of the very low fertility rates in Singapore (far lower than any of the Nordic countries), having a very open immigration system and successful economic integration is imperative to the country's success. Singapore needs to attract global talent and effectively utilize human capital gained from the brain gain. And it is here where things are very different from the Nordic countries. You see, the Nordic countries are not very good at integrating immigrants, even though they do have high immigration rates. Sweden in particular has the largest gaps in employment rates between natives and foreign-born (the other Nordic countries aren't too far behind either). As a results, instead of benefiting the economy, immigration to the Nordic countries is instead a drain on public finances. Such a situation would be unthinkable in Singapore; indeed that would be the nightmare scenario that the country has to avoid at all costs. This is because, again, the Singaporean model is much more dependent on immigration than the Nordic countries to function, on account of its much lower fertility rate. And as I believe that the Nordic countries' inability to economically integrate immigrants is an inherent flaw in the Nordic model, I don't think it suits a country that is so dependent on attracting and utilizing foreign talent to have that particular weakness in its model. Also, Singapore is a financial center, due to economic geography and very low taxation/regulation. This leads to high inequality, but is constitutes a big part of Singapore's economic model which helped catapult the country from one of the poorest in the world in the 1960's (on par with Sub-Saharan Africa) to the level of prosperity seen today. Moreover, the country is utterly lacking in natural resources (it's a freaking city-state!). Norway has oil, Sweden has its ore, Finland exports forest products, Denmark is one of the most agriculture-intensive economies in the developed world, and Iceland has the benefit of having an exclusive economic zone the size of China's, divided between a population of 300,000!

i strongly agree with you on everything you said, my reply was simply about the benefits of discussing the nordic model as it might help steer the prioritize towards society but in no way adopt the whole model. Like you said Singopore is extremely successful and very different. As a Swede i'd rather see us going towards the Singapore system as, like you wrote, we are terrible when it come to integration but still insists on having high immigration. Another thing that is often forgotten about the Nordic model is that the initial price is very high and it takes a long time before the benefits from it starts to kick in, which was possible in the past but in todays global economy it'd create huge damage. Last thing i just want to clear is that i admire how Singapore have managed to become so strong despite their not so impressive initial conditions and one of the reasons i find it fascinating is because i see Singapore as a counter part to the nordic countries when it comes to fighting above their weight class just that the Nordic countries does it with things like welfare and environment while Singapore does it with economics.

not true look at quality of life indexes singapore falls below the nordic countries

That`s not true at all. Singapore is nowhere near the Nordic countries.