Also, Norway is one of these lucky countries with a lot of oil and not a lot of people :-)
Most industries not related to oil in some way is basically at a standstill, because oil exports are driving the NOK and thus making our other exports expensive.
Also, the oil companies can outbid just about anyone else for employees.
The recent oil price drop has been a boon for many companies that was desperate from engineers etc. Now they can take on projects that were on ice because they didn't have the staff and such.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report
(Yay Switzerland for giving a little competition to the Nordics)
2. The UN index is really more of a "quality of life" index, with very strange/subjective criteria. For example, if you sort by the "Freedom to make life choices" column, Uzbekistan comes out on top, with Cambodia in third place. NOt buying it.
3. Another view (from a left-leaning newspaper, typically sympathetic to the Nordics)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/scandinavian-m...
For example, over 9% of the residents of the country were not born in a European country.
Regarding the piece from The Guardian, consider this quote: "A spokesman for the Sweden Democrats (currently at an all-time high of close to 10% in the polls) insisted to me that immigrants were "more prone to violence"."
SD is an anti-immigrant party in Sweden. I find it odd that the speaker chose a source which is most likely to give a negative portrayal of immigrants. But I needn't explore that in any depth as the commenters to that piece have done so for me.
FWIW, there was a followup at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/05/scandinavian-m... . The author writes (about the piece you linked to):
> In trying to make myself heard above the clamour of pro-Nordic propaganda in the British (indeed, global) media, and shake a few people out of their decade-long Scandi-trances, I hereby plead guilty to a selective, provocative slant on the region.
The recent post A Swede Returns to Silicon Valley from Beijing said it well:
"My first experience of the States and of Silicon Valley was absolutely soul-crushingly disappointing. I landed in San Francisco and felt like I had traveled back in time. Far from the expected glass towers of a technological utopia, what I found was a surprisingly run down city that reminded me of traveling in Eastern Europe. It seemed to be all pot and potholes"