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The "happiness" index is not applicable to remote workers. Happiness index is essentially measured by asking locals how happy they are. This has nothing to do w
by j7ake 3y ago
The "happiness" index is not applicable to remote workers. Happiness index is essentially measured by asking locals how happy they are. This has nothing to do with whether an outsider (e.g. an American) would become happier if they moved to that country. It is more of a cultural indicator of how they approach and view life. Countries where the culture is to complain a lot get a 'low' happiness index (e.g. France and Italy), while people who are are pragmatic and rarely complain get a 'high' happiness index (e.g. Denmark).
Asking locals how happy they are has little information whether an outsider would be happy living there.
Just an example: Dutch people are very happy living in the Netherlands. But someone who is used to living in a city with good restaurants and good weather will absolutely hate the Netherlands. Biking is not fun when it's windy and rainy outside, but Dutch people don't mind it because they think it's normal. Dutch people also don't care about food as much as Italians (a thick piece of bread with a thin piece of slice is a lunch), and the stark difference in quality of restaurants between Netherlands and Italy shows this.
- eptcyka 3y agoI love the way you describe dutch lunches - a thin piece of slice. I will use this in the future to refer to lackluster food.
- j7ake 3y agoIt was a typo, but happy that it worked out as imagery.
- NooneAtAll3 3y agowhat is the original word?
- twiss 3y agoStereotypically, probably "thin slice of cheese" :)
- alkonaut 3y agoThis question should be rephrased using objective metrics. It’s still a difficult metric but at least it wouldn’t merely measure cultural or even linguistic quirks. Ask how many worry about their health, losing their jobs, crime, money, how many feel they have enough and fulfilling free time, trust their neighbors and so on.
- stavros 3y agoThis tracks, I live in Thessaloniki and it's a fantastic city to live in (relatively, anyway) if you're not making a Greek salary.
- TacticalCoder 3y ago> Just an example: Dutch people are very happy living in the Netherlands. Is that so? I had the impression that impression that a far-right politician, Geert Wilders, won the last elections in the Netherlands precisely because people in the Netherlands were, for a very big part, not happy at all with the state of thing?
- twiss 3y agoOne of the big issues in the election was cost and availability of housing. I think most Dutch people are happy to live in the Netherlands (and want to keep living there), but are unhappy that it's getting so expensive, and worry things will get worse with the growing population and limited space (and construction not keeping up), which led to some anti-immigration feelings (unfortunately). More concretely, I know plenty of people who would like to live in Amsterdam (or more centrally), but were forced to live in the outskirts or neighboring cities due to cost - while central Amsterdam is increasingly filled by expats and tourists. The mayor is trying to counteract this and keep Amsterdam for "Amsterdammers", but that's difficult, of course. I presume similar issues exist in other Dutch cities.
- Hamuko 3y ago>The mayor is trying to counteract this and keep Amsterdam for "Amsterdammers", but that's difficult, of course. I presume similar issues exist in other cities. Housing costs are always an issue but I haven't heard of any issues with Helsinki being "filled by expats and tourists". Perhaps it's because it's a relatively small city, the person seeking to move to Finland doesn't want to be in an urban environment or people just aren't moving in at all. Really, the only place "filled with tourists" is Lapland, where at one point you might hear more Chinese around town than Finnish.
- twiss 3y agoSorry, I meant other Dutch cities (edited). The tourists part might be specific to Amsterdam but afaik there are plenty of expats in Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Utrecht, etc. as well.
- CalRobert 3y agoYou're right about the food but for me being able to have my kids bike to school safely has been very nice in the Netherlands. I am not Dutch.