“Navigating societal and cultural values of a new country is a challenge for every expat striving to integrate and thrive in their new environment. This bi-monthly column aims to provide insights in to the Danish societal and cultural values through the lens of a new parent who has spent close to a decade making Denmark their new home”
Balancing Act: the Danish way
Work-life balance: those three magical words every working person dreams about and hopes to attain, maintain, and propagate. I’d always wondered what these words meant to me and when I could confidently say I had achieved the ‘balance’. While I was a PhD student at DTU, the scale would more often than not tilt to the ‘work’ side. And why not? More work meant more experiments being run, more papers being written, more conferences being attended—more accolades, so to say. By the end of the second year, I was burnt out, and it took sobering advice from my supervisor to bring the scale back to the center. Yes, more work did mean more achieved, but always at the cost of precious brainpower. And brainpower was what would ultimately lead to getting the thesis out and the program done with. After all, the brain, just like any other part of your body, needs rest in order to recover and come back strong. The advice stuck, and I made it a point to make time for things other than work (the ‘life’ part) and reap the benefits of a well-rested mind.
Looking back, overworking, or rather tilting the scale to the ‘work’ end, was more prevalent among my non-Danish, and specifically non-EU, peers. Evenings and weekends were always sacrosanct for the Danish students. The concept of work-life balance, or ‘arbejdslivsbalance,’ is deeply ingrained in Danish society—so much so that our Danish language instruction book had an entire chapter dedicated to the concept. Looking at the statistics, Danes work an average of 1,563 hours per year, which is lower than the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) average of 1,739 hours. Additionally, only about 2% of employees in Denmark work very long hours (more than 50 hours a week), compared to the OECD average of 11%. Similarly, full-time workers in Denmark devote more time to personal care, leisure, and looking after newborns than their average counterpart from OECD countries.
Numbers aside, I feel fortunate to be inculcating the ‘balance’ principle, especially as a working mother to a spirited one-year-old. There have been several occasions, right from the time I got pregnant, that I have had to take a step back from work and focus on myself and my child. However, I am truly fortunate to have been able to do that without any feeling of guilt.
About 72% of Danish women have paid jobs outside the home, which is significantly higher than the OECD average of 59%. This high employment rate for women is supported by generous benefits such as pregnancy leave, maternity leave, parental leave, flexible timings, and days off for child sickness (must-have especially as the notice board on my son’s daycare reads like an almanac of infectious diseases). Because—life happens. You get sick, your child gets sick, yada yada —and you need the flexibility to be able to function as your best version.
Not only do these generous benefits help me take care of the ‘life’ part, but they also make me feel empowered, reduce stress, and help me respect office hours, making me overall more efficient and productive. In a way, it solves my mumma-conundrum of ‘cannot have it all’ to a great extent.
Choosing Denmark for its work-life balance is one thing, but truly living it is another. The Danish system offers incredible support, but the real challenge is in our hands. After all, the balancing act has to come from you as well – to not let the scales tilt too heavily in either direction is on you, Denmark is just providing a levelled playing field. I’ve learned to step back and recharge, understanding that true productivity comes from a well-rested mind. Embracing this balance has been a game-changer for me, both as a professional and a mother. Denmark provides the tools, but it’s up to us to use them wisely.
So good to see how things are done the Danish way.
But the thing that resonates the most with me is “the balancing act has to come from you”.
I am here in Singapore which is a pretty balanced society in itself. But I still see all kinds of experiences around me. In my organisation itself, I see people on both sides of the scales. So, I’d concur again, it’s you who decides.