Alcohol Limits, Class Divides & University Cuts in Denmark: LWID S2E2

In this second episode, Arun and Narcis discuss various topics related to life in Denmark. Arun shares his excitement about passing his driving test. They chat about the new proposed changes to driving alcohol limits for and the potential impact on new drivers. They also touch on the growing inequality in Denmark and the influence of American culture on Danish society. The episode concludes with a discussion about the challenges of homeownership for young people in Denmark.

Topics covered in today’s podcast:

• Proposed changes to legal alcohol limits (02:11)
• Growing inequality in Denmark (07:36)
• High cost of housing (23:06)
• Importance of vocational education (27:28)
• Impact of low fertility rates (38:37)

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Chapters

• 2:11 Proposed Changes to Denmark's Legal Alcohol Limits
• 7:36 Growing Inequality and American Influence
• 18:08 Homeownership: A Challenge for Young People
• 24:13 High Housing Costs in Denmark
• 28:35 The Importance of Vocational Education
• 39:44 The Impact of Low Fertility Rates
• 47:06 The Future of this Podcast

Transcript

Arun:

Welcome everyone listening to this podcast or watching this podcast. I'm your host, Arun. Each week, in collaboration with Narcis, the Founder of Last Week in Denmark, we bring you the latest news and insights that matter most to the expat community here in Denmark. Welcome, Narcis to the show once again.

Narcis: 

Thank you, Arun. And hopefully we will be able to do this more often. From what I hear around, people are quite excited that the podcast is back. I'm surprised how many people want to see and to listen and not just read Last Week in Denmark. So I'm happy that we're doing this again and yeah, let's have fun again tonight. How are you, Arun? This week I'm really curious about your life. What makes what. What makes your life in Denmark interesting?

Arun:

I'm personally happy with how the week unfolded because there are two things that I'm really excited that I want to share. Number one, after a long preparation of one month, I finally passed my driving lessons, both theory and practicals. So now I am. I would say I will hold a Danish license. So I'm excited, happy. It's a big deal for me.

Narcis: 

What's about the car? What's going to be your first car in Denmark?

Arun:

No, I don't think so. I'm going to invest money in my car because it's damn expensive to buy a car, number one. But I don't think I need a car at the moment because I am single, living life as. As frugal as possible. So the first thing that I would rather invest is in housing, but that's another topic. But they also have a lot of other options, right? Renting, Owning a car is not a thing for me. But of course, at some point I might think about it, consider about it if I have a family. But at the moment it's more like. Yeah, traveling.Having a road trip abroad would essentially be the first step.

Narcis: 

Well, Arun, it's amazing you got your driving license. Congratulations on that. But you have seen that they're planning to change the rules about driving. Like, for example, you'll not be able to drive anymore if you had one or two beers. That's not an option anymore.

Arun:

Oh yeah.

Narcis: 

Lower it from 05 to 02.

Arun:

It's not exactly.

Narcis: 

It's not yet a decision. It's a proposal that needs to pass this autumn in the Parliament. And maybe it'll be enforced from January next year, but it's not yet a law. It's just. It's a proposal. It's A proposal that we need to be serious about because it's proposed by the government, which has a majority in the parliament. So usually what they propose kind of becomes reality. So unless there will be some sort of very huge backlash against it, there goes the 05 to 02. But there is a little. There is a. Let's just say, you know, it's Denmark and every legislation has, let's just say, a way out. And the way out here is that you can. You have to wait three years. Basically only your first three years of having a driving license is this special lower alcohol limit. It's not for everyone.

Arun:

So how does it work? So if I own a license now. So this law applies for the new license holders.

Narcis: 

Yeah.

Arun:

Or okay, so it will affect you and me. So once you get your license, you will also be under the same rules, I guess it seems.

Narcis: 

No more wine, no more beer.

Arun:

Don't drink it. Right. I think it's. That's the say, right? I mean, when you remind me of this news article that you're pointing out to from point five to point two, I think this rule is already sort of similar to what Faroe Islands has in place already. Because when I went through the theory exam, I think Denmark limit. Denmark's alcohol limit level is I think 05. But in Pharaoh I think it's 0.25 or something. But. But it. It seems to be a good move in my opinion because then people are really stringent about these levels, alcohol levels.And they will not be able to mess with the system that is in place, which I think is really essential, especially country like Denmark. I think the culture of consuming alcohol is pretty normal and pretty. Pretty. Yeah, that's an everyday thing, right? Every weekend partying and consuming alcohol. But in my opinion it's a good, good route.

Narcis: 

It might be a problem for some of the internationals or non Europeans who are trying to apply for. For citizenship. Right? Because if you. If not just non Europeans, everyone. Yeah, citizenship. And if you get the like clip. Yeah, a clip or something, then you have to wait four years extra before you can apply for citizenship.

Arun:

That is true as well.

Narcis: 

So basically now it will become even easier to get that clip.

Arun:

I think that's a fair point to argue. And that is. Right. It's not just the clip. It's also fine of 3,000 kroner, right. Something around.

Narcis: 

If you caught with 0.2, that's already. That's going to be bigger than 3,000. The fine, the. The rules. You just passed the theory rules. Right. So what are the Rules about driving with over 0.5. What happens then to you?

Arun:

Yeah, I think they get a fine but they also get a clip which means that that's kind of a big impact in, in. In their uh. Uh. I would say citizenship obviously but if, if the level goes Beyond I think 1 or 1.2, then they face imprisonment. That's the worst thing that could happen.Right. And that's the worst. And nobody wants to be in that position. But one of the reasons why I don't want to own a car is also like the clip could be of different reasons. Not just an alcohol but also bypassing laws or not following rules, lane change or parking issues or something. And I think this will also count as some sort of penalty or a fine. And that is also one of the reasons why I don't want to take in that burden. So I would rather wait for a couple of years before I invest in car owning a car.

Narcis: 

By the time you're going to get the car they're going to be driving themselves.

Arun:

So driverless cars. Yeah, but that is, that is something I'm just. I'm just wondering how then they will go with. Proceed with training because if the cars can park automatically then I don't think it will be a skill that is required anymore because one of my friend told meI don't park my car. I know that my car will automatically park. And I said then if cars are becoming that intelligent then how do we then get a driving license without able to park now you can actually get licenses like you mentioned. I think last week that you can actually get a license without gearless vehicle. So you can use an automatic geared car to get the same license as you would do normally for a gear car. So things might change like you said with some things change relaxations with rules. The.

Narcis: 

The fewer there. There is fewer people compared to the past. If you look at the percentage of the population that want to take a license anyway. So there's fewer people who want to own a car or who want to have a license. Usually they are waiting till later in life because while they live in study live in the city center. Why, why they even have to think about it? So maybe they will consider if they when they get married and have children, move in the suburbs then it's like oh God, the public transport does not work so well. And that takes me to the next subject for today about the rural areas. There's a rural reform coming up because it's. They would like that more people actually choose to stay in the. In the rural areas. There is a severe depopulation going on in the rural areas. In some areas they expect in the next 10 years that there will be a depopulation of minus 30%, 40%. And that's, to be honest, the only reason those numbers are not worse are because of us. A lot of internationals choose to live in the rural areas, choose to stay in there. And because of the cheaper housing, because they don't mind driving faster further or commuting to work a longer distance. And that means we are actually now keeping many of these villages alive. There's actually if. If you do a search in newspapers around local newspapers around Denmark, you'll find so many stories of families, international families who are being praised for choosing the village of whatever. Boris. That has 500 citizens in total. And thanks to that family with five children, now they have a future. Because there's five children for now in Finland.

Arun:

You know, when you mentioned rural areas. So they. They fall under. Let's say I live in Zealand. I'm not in the city. Of course, I'm not in greater Copenhagen. I live in of day. Does it count as a rural area or is it. No. Okay. But I think in between, let's say Gentofte and Roskilde and then again, tough day. There's a lot of areas.

Narcis: 

There's also an in your area, rural areas. It just has to be very few people living there. I think is already under 2,000 people in the village.

Arun:

Okay, then that definitely G. Is not. That.

Narcis: 

Is one of the more, let's say richer areas of the country.

Arun:

There is populated as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is quite populated.

Narcis: 

And then expect that to be considered rural. Rural areas are basically sparsely populated by large municipalities who have a lot of small villages. Not very. Not a huge agglomeration. Let's just say in the center. And they. They don't have a lot of. Let's say industry or alot of business going on to. To support them. Because you know how it works in Denmark. Most of your taxes stay in your municipality. So if a municipality has what, 20,000 people or 50,000 people. And then most of them work. I don't know if I work in Aarhus. And luckily I can pay my dues in Oldborg because my address is in Albert. Right. But if I work in Oldborg, then I need to have a chance to work. But then if you look at this, rural areas, like lowland. Right? Look at lowland. Lowland has a huge unemployment problem,right? This big. Huge. Huge in Danish standards. Okay. Because our national unemployment rate is 2.4 and Lowland has a bit over 6, which in context of Europe is perfectly fine. It's just. If you compare lowland with the rest of the country, you'll notice a lot of problems there. Like for example, 8% of the population in lowland is registered as a bad debtor, right on the rti. You know, in Denmark, if you don't pay your debts, then they put you in this special RKI register to know. So others know that you are a bad pay. So you,okay, borrow your money. So if, if you are on this register, so 8% of the population in lowland is on that register. Then also it was. I remember lowland appeared again in the top when it was about how many people fail at math and Danish, okay. Finishing their education. And it was a severe number of 30% in lowland. So as you can see, the situation down there is. Is not great, right? The rural areas are not. Are not having, let's just say, the same level of attention and investments from the government, or in general from society, compared to like big cities, right? Or end of day.

Arun:

I think it's also like what you mentioned is the level of education is not also the same, as I understand from you, because passing a math is a fundamental thing. But it's also like in India. If I compare some of the things that I. I compare with India and I feel like institutions in India are privatized because a lot of people wanted to get good education so they could good jobs and so on, so on and so forth. And when I start to compare and I tell my parents, it says education in Denmark is free, but you also get good education.But from, From. From things that I learned from Denmark, local articles and stuff. I think it's not like the same same everywhere in all the communes.

Narcis: 

Unfortunately.

Arun:

That's also an information.

Narcis: 

And I think that's why right now, for example, one of the lead journalists in Denmark, from Berlinski, she went on TV and said, we live in a brutal class society in Denmark. The whole dream of egalitarian society is just not real. And to be honest, if you look at the statistics, the level of inequality in Denmark is growing. Okay, unfortunately, because what is the Danish dream? The Danish dream basically says we should be able to work whatever, but kind of live similar lives. So no matter that you have whatever, I don't know you, you're a doctor and I'm a cleaner on the street. We should not have too much difference in our income level. There shouldn't be our children, if they go to public education, they should have the same, same level of. Of education opportunities in life. If I go to thedoctor, I should be able to reach the same treatment, right? Regardless if I'm a cleaner or you're a doctor. Right. Unfortunately that statistics are showing that people who earn less money live less, live fewer years in Denmark. So you can say that people who earnwell, they also a burden on society because they tend to live really, really long. They tend to take for a long time.

Arun:

I mean, a lot of people who earn, sometimes I feel like they're not. I would say it's not. I cannot compare the data with healthiness because all these rich kids, for example, I don't think they. They have a healthy lifestyle, for example. And, and of course it could compare and say, okay, I have a good financial muscle that I could use. But, but, but they're also fat, unhealthy rich people. I cannot just say that it is connected to the healthiness. But one is true, like you mentioned, they don't have the same salary like based on professions. And it is starting to change.

Narcis: 

But it used to be the same. I'm saying similar, similar. There's. There will always be differences, right? But there shouldn't be. The idea is that regardless of how big the difference in salaries is between us, both of us can afford to take vacation, more of us can. Ourchildren can go to the same school, we go to the same doctor, we go to the same store, we go in the society together and play football. Denmark is unfortunately very influenced by the US society and the way US goes, we are kind of following. No wonder thatDenmark and us are a bit like umbilically connected. And because there's this huge. I think they saw, they. The idea of being more about yourself and less about the community comes from there. Be honest, no offense to all our US listeners and Americans who live in Denmark, but that's, it's. It's about culture, right? It's. And where do you get influenced by. And I'm not saying the whole America is like that, but certain pictures from us, from certain parts of us emerge here. And the influence, the way people think and the way people regard the Danish society. And I think that's. That's not great for us because the way Denmark was built and, and we were able to be a top without having any resources, right? Because we don't have petrol like the Norwegians have natural resources. We don't have wood in IKEA like Sweden has. We have innovation and we have community. Those two things that we have in Denmark kept us very high. The fact that we are able to sell innovation to other countries. Be that in green transition, be that in pharma rightnow. I mean, look around. We're the only Nordic state that is doing well economically. Everyone else is suffering around us.

Arun:

That is true. I think both energy and pharmaceuticals are driving the society in a positive direction. I think one thing is very clear. A lot of people are of course, influenced by the Western, Western countries, influenced by a lot of U.S. markets. And you talked about the young people. Right? Which brings one of the information, one of the article about young people between the age 25 to 29 years old own a house. There's very few, seldom 27 percentage or so. So let us walk, walk through that article.

Narcis: 

Yeah.

Arun:

What, what, what is special about it? 27 percentage. Do you think, do you think normally people at that age own a house? Because I haven't in my lifetime, in my 25 years. When I was 25 years old, I was living with my parents in India. And it's not a big deal to actually own a house. Of course, I have a hereditary property in India that I enjoy being with my family. But how does it work in Denmark? What's the dynamics here?

Narcis: 

No, but you know how in Denmark, parents expect young people to leave the nest at 18? 18. It rings the bell. Okay, time for us to pack our bags and go to Thailand, dear child.

Arun:

Okay, so 18. They send their kids out of the home.

Narcis: 

Exactly. You'll just put this song combardo. Com Bardo. And then, and then you'll, you'll. You'll help them pack their packages and have a good life. We tried our best. We did what we could. Now is your turn. So, yes, if you look at the statistics from 1980s, right. 60% of25 year olds had the house.

Arun:

Okay, 60.

Narcis: 

And if you look at 30 year olds it was 80%. So it was very seldom, it was very rare that young people will not own a house. And, and look at today, 25, 27%.

Arun:

Which is I very low compared to that data.

Narcis: 

I really fear that it was a lot worse, to be honest. I expected 5, 6%.

Arun:

I have a question here. Yeah. Just out of curiosity. So I know these people, young Danish kids, they go out and work in supermarkets. Work to earn their wage, daily wages at a very young age. Which I really feel inspired, which I also shared to my community in India.But how much they could earn in a span of, let's say while studying. They get sus to finance themselves so they actually earn a very small portion. That could be, you know, you can save them. But do, do, do you think that they could save like let's say 200 or 300,000 kroners to put as a down payment for buying an apartment? Must be a lot of money, right?

Narcis: 

Well, it's, the down payment is 5%.

Arun:

So yeah.

Narcis: 

Usually would you not go as your first house? Because the idea is in, in Denmark you, you get probably own more than one house in your lifetime. So 5% as a first house. You're not going to buy a big house. You're most likely going to buy something that costs maybe a million. So 5% will be 50,000. And 50,000 is possible to put on a sign in the span from 18 to 25. It's seven years.

Arun:

Where do you get housing for 1 million? I would like to also pitch in because it's very expensive, to be honest. You know, I, I live in a place where I can't imagine to buy a house.

Narcis: 

They have to leave Ghent of there. That's just not for you.

Arun:

I'm thinking of actually doing that. I, I, I saw the prices in the current year. The minimum that I could actually move in is for a 3 million. And then guess what? My down payment is freaking 300 to 400,000 at least. And that's a lot of money for me. Yeah, no, 10 percentage is 10 percentage. I think some of the banks, they, they want a security deposit because I, I'm still a pr, I'm not a citizenship yet. So there is not the same percentage for, and it goes to 20 percentage for someone who is new to the country.

Narcis: 

Oh wow.

Arun:

And it's, it's common across, across all the banks. It's not just few banks, private banks and also national banks.

Narcis: 

So yeah, When I got my first house was I was 31 or 30, I think just when I turned 30, I got my first house in Denmark.

Arun:

Okay.

Narcis: 

But to be honest, I could have gotten my first house when I was on a SU.

Arun:

Okay.

Narcis: 

SU was large enough for me and the money I was making on the side from part time work, it was large enough for me to get a 1 million house. And there's plenty of 1 million houses in the north of Denmark, by the way. If anyone wants to move Copenhagen, leave the south to them, come to the north. We have a lot of turnkey houses at 1 million. And that's with a lot of space around. You don't have to sit in a cubicle in Copenhagen for 5 million krones, you know.

Arun:

But is it the same price across the city center or close to the city? Or is it even further in rural.

Narcis: 

Areas in the city? City center is 2 million.

Arun:

Okay, that's not a big deal. Yeah, that's a good money actually. Yeah. I'm living 20 kilometers outside the Greater Copenhagen, but the prices are like skyrocketing and I can't imagine everyone wants to live there.

Narcis: 

I mean, when you guys all want to live on such a small space and such a small island, what do you think is going to happen? It's, which is sad because you don't really pay the real price of the house. You pay a very inflated price, actually.

Arun:

True, true.

Narcis: 

And that can easily deflate. You know how it can deflate? Basically what One thing that they're planning to do now in the, in the housing reform is that they want to get the state to start building again housing for, for people. So that means they will attack the private rental market and the private ownership market. Because what happened now is that, for example, if you look at the city center of Copenhagen, 65 of the apartments there are not owned by, by people for themselves. They're owned by companies or by people who rent them out. This, this whole idea of you buying apartments to rent them out has become so strong that it has pushed the price artificially up. But now the government is planning to start building. They will start building and provide people with cheaper housing.And it's just, it's not just in Denmark. Actually. Even EU is planning to put a huge focus on housing because housing is a European problem. We do not have enough housing out there. And the fact that you can't afford the fact that there are people who in their 30s can't afford a house, it's ridiculous. This idea that you have to live in rental all your life. It's not, it's not management. It's not the European way of life. As you see, only 30 years ago we, most of us owned the house as soon as 25 years old. What happened to that, youknow. Yeah, well, fair enough. I can. In Denmark you can still own a house pretty early if you're smart about where you choose to take it from. Because somehow the, the, it's a low down payment. It's a very low interest rate. Now it's not so low anymore.

Arun:

But now it's not. Yeah, now it's 4 to 5 percentage, I guess. Yeah, yeah.

Narcis: 

But when, when I got. It was 1% right. And I locked it in 1%. And, and that, that was, that was very good for, for, for us.

Arun:

But do you think the prices will go down? What do you speculate?

Narcis: 

House pressings? If the government.

Arun:

No, no, not the housing prices, the interest rates.

Narcis: 

Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. The interest rates are on the way down. That's. I mean look at the inflation rate. It's. It's nearing 0% in Denmark. Oh, it's, it's incredibly low. And also it. Unfortunately it's not just about Denmark. We have to follow the rest of Europe and USmarket. So now US Market finally interest rate has declined quite significantly as well. So that means that the Federal Reserve will announce very soon a cut in interest rate. Then European Central bank will announce a cut in interest rates. And then finally theDanish treasury will also announce a cut in interest rate. And then our banks will slowly also announce a cut in interest rates.

Arun:

That is what I'm looking forward to.

Narcis: 

Okay, you have, you have some mortgage loan or some, some loan that you got?

Arun:

No, I'm looking for to buy an apartment. So probably I'll wait when the law has passed and then probably I will bet in because I've stayed in Denmark for close to six years now. In four months I will be six years in Denmark and I'm thinking of actually investing in property. Before I talked about, you know, cars. I think property is better and I can put, put some money aside in the meantime to have the down payment like 10 percentage at least. So I think it's a good sign for me to start saving more money. Yeah. Let's talk about university bachelor programs. Places will be cut in 2025 around 15 percentage and most of the affected univers.“Ross Kilday — CBS, ITU, Aarhus — let’s talk about it.”

Narcis: 

Well, the government wants fewer people to study higher education that lead to unemployment.

Arun:

That's okay.

Narcis: 

Question simply they want more people to think and consider a vocational direction. We have too few people who want to be carpenters, electricians, you know, useful things, and too many people who want to be anthropologists, Africa studies, I don't know, art and other unemployment studies that are out there. No offense to people who study. I also studied in unemployment studies, international relations. Most of my colleagues took years before they found and landed their first job. So there are many such, let's just say profiles in university which are simply not connected with the reality of the job market. And then the government said okay, that's. This is not okay. You know, like we. First of all, we need more people to study vocational direction. Second of all, they also making the master degrees shorter. 10% of the master degrees will be shorter from two years to one because they want people to join the labor market faster. That's because of the shortage of labor. That was the idea behind, behind it. But I also want people after they finish a shorter education, let's say to quicker join the labor market. Because people who tend to study university, they tend to study as long as they can, five, six, seven, eight years before they land their first job. And that's a long, long time to start your contributing to the state, you know. So there's some considerations behind. I understand why they do it. They also planning to move some spots from the big cities to the rural areas. So there will be a lot of, let's just say, programs that will be moved in the rural. For example, lawyers will be studying in Kogi. If I'm not wrong, they will not be studying in Copenhagen anymore. I think maritime studies are all moved to the north of Denmark. There is several professions that will be clustered together in a certain city that's not unknown more or less inDenmark because they want to bring people to other areas. They don't want everyone to. Because all the students come to the big cities. They can't afford to live in the big cities, more or less. They spend most of their money on rent, if not more. And then that leads to a very precarious life. And as Su technically was thought that you should have a decent life, be able to actually focus on your studies and, and, and live thrive on it. But not in Copenhagen. Right?

Arun:

Yeah.

Narcis: 

So, so that, that's kind of the, the reasoning behind. They want a bit more equality between the, the big cities areas and the rural areas. And they need more students to be.

Arun:

Spread a little bit diversify with the program across. Across cities and rural areas. Makes sense.

Narcis: 

Many people, well, to be honest, at the same time, for example, Dansk Industry is very angry about this cut in students because they say that we need more qualified workforce in Denmark and what are we doing? We are cutting down on study places. So there is logic and there's not logic to it. The problem is they. They cannot motivate people to move to the rural areas if they don't cut down on how many available spots are in the city. In the big cities.

Arun:

Right.

Narcis: 

So. So that's, that's the problem here because the. The spots are cut from the current universities which are in the big cities, not. Not from the rural. But there are new spots open in the new. In the rural areas. So people just have to choose to study there instead ofCopenhagen, Orcus and Albert. Right.

Arun:

Are these programs just Danish based programs or is it also English? So it's only Danish programs.

Narcis: 

Exactly. They want to cut the general number of spots in university, not specific type. But at the same time they're opening new spots for English speakers which they cut a couple of years ago. There'll be bachelor programs, there'll be more places in master degrees. And also I think some university colleges are getting their places back as well. Especially if you choose to. To study in horse sense or colding. There will definitely be a lot of new spots for. For English speakers down there.

Arun:

But how. How will. Talking about how will the master's program being normally two years including the thesis period, working with the companies and doing the thesis master thesis cutting down to one year. Does it make a value for students because they might have electives for two semesters in the academic year and then they have to do some project with organizations or maybe do research about something. I don't know how this dynamics will work. In my opinion, one year is a really sandwich model, like a short version of a huge passive program. So maybe there could be some electives that they could omit and focus on a particular set of electives for the job market. Maybe. I'm not sure.

Narcis: 

You have to think about the master degree you have. Nice to know and need to know, right?

Arun:

Yeah, that is also true.

Narcis: 

Simply go savage on all the stuff that. Do you really need to know that to be that? Not really. There will also be more. More savage in the amount of time they give you to write your thesis.

Arun:

So.

Narcis: 

So there will be more strict and more efficient models putting it into it. We don't know how this is going to work. To be honest. Universities say that it's not going to work. Ministry of Education Higher Education wants it to work. So. So let's see what's gonna happen.In reality, it's never been tested yet. They're gonna, we're gonna see the first, I think group entering the master degree in 2025. So in 2026 we can have again this discussion and see. Okay, what's the idea with this one year master degrees? Is it working or is it a complete failure? Because right now they're also testing. They only choose 10% of the master degrees, which can be shortened. So maybe there'll be more technical ones or I don't know which ones. Or maybe the ones that they want people to go faster into the labor market like I T or cyber security or who knows? So, so that's, that's kind of like the reasoning behind it. I'm not defending the government here. I'm just saying what's their logic behind it? Does it work? Does it not work? I don't know. I know that in Denmark we're desperate for labor force.

Arun:

That's always the case, right? Yeah.

Narcis: 

No, no. I mean we're growing as. Because we have a strong economy. Because despite all the crisis that hit us in the past couple of years, we're still growing like crazy. We have broken the record of employed people in Denmark. Historically. We are three. More than 3 million people who work right now who have a job.

Arun:

That's the cough. Half of the population.

Narcis: 

More than half.

Arun:

More than half of. Yeah, 6 million right now.

Narcis: 

So, so that's, that's a lot of people who are actually employed. Because you have to also consider that in that, in those numbers they don't consider people who have companies and work for themselves. That's a hundred thousand people. That's why the numbers are much higher in reality. But that's 3 million people who work for someone else, right? That's a lot of people who have a job in Denmark. And because of that we also also have a lot of money coming to the government because there's a lot of taxes being collected. So we have this huge leeway to be able to come up with all sorts of crazy improvements in the next, in the next years. That's why if you look, you'll notice that the government comes kind of comes up with new ideas and new reforms and new things to spend money on almost every week or two weeks at best. There's always something new. Like right now they want to give 200 million krones reward for municipalities who are willing to make a lot, a lot of solar cell parks and wind farms around, around their municipalities. So it's a It's a bonus basically for rural areas to be like, yes, we have a lot of land which is empty, we can win those money. But right, 200 million right here or now they want to give this with a rural reform. They want to allow, they want to give this extra payment for young people who live in 25 municipalities where they have to do a lot of transport between school and where they stay, school and maybe work, I don't know. And they want to make a subsidy for public transport for them, you know. Right. Again,money that have to come from somewhere or the fact that they were willing last time, remember we talked about retirement. The fact that they were willing to, to freeze the retirement age at 70, which also might mean a cost of 30 billion for the society every year.Nobody will have touched that before in the last couple of years, because they will, they will be crushed just thinking about 30 billion. But then when they saw that Denmark can grow and can have this, all this extra money in the budget that they were not expecting,now they have different ambitions and everyone comes up with crazy ideas. Like now the Conservatives, they want families who keep their children at home to take care of them before in the first years of life, like up to five years old, you know, because in some, in some municipalities in Denmark, 81 municipalities or so, if you choose to not take your child to daycare or to kindergarten, you can get paid by the government to take care of the child at home. But the way it works is that you don't, you don't, you're not allowed to have a job next to it or a part time job or any other sort of. But now the Conservatives are like, why don't we allow those parents to also get a part time job, 20,000 cr maximum, and still give them the money.

Arun:

Talking about the population, I think it's also interesting to look at the low fertility rate in Denmark and the rest of Europe. And what does it mean for the next six decades? I think it's written about there's a decline to 3 million by 2080. What, what is alarming in this? I know there will be a lot of immigrants moving into Denmark, but what does this low fertility in Denmark mean for Danish immigrants or internationals living?

Narcis: 

I mean, it just means that the. Look here, we as internationals, we, most of us are young, most of us come here, start a family. Many, we kind of keep the country running. The discussion here is more about how many Danes will there be actually, because they don't want to talk too on the face about it. But like how many Actual Danes. Will there still be 60 years from now? Because the population of Denmark in reality will not decrease to 3 million. There's no way. You have to understand, we. There's 200000 internationals coming up. I think they came last year.

Arun:

200,200 000 just last year. Okay.

Narcis: 

It was a record. We jump to 600000 in Denmark and they expect that we will be. In the next three, three, four years, we should reach 1 million. So 400000 more international should come here. So if this rate of. I mean, and you also have to take other things, right?Think about it. There is. There will be huge waves of climate refugees in the future. There will still be people coming to Denmark just because of the country. There will be people running away from Southern Europe as the heat gets worse down there and moving up to the north. So the question here is, will Denmark have enough people six years from now?

Arun:

Yes.

Narcis: 

The other question is how many of them would be Danish?

Arun:

Yeah. And currently how many, how many percentage of Danish people live in Denmark? Of course it should be, well, 70, 80 percentage.

Narcis: 

5 million. 5 million of them.

Arun:

5 million. That's what. That's like the largest majority. Right. So 1 million is immigrants and 5 million is. No, no, no, no.

Narcis: 

But we're not 6 million yet.

Arun:

We're 5.9. Right?

Narcis: 

If. Yeah, at best, I think for sure we're not yet 6, but we're somewhere between 5.6 and. And probably 5.9.

Arun:

Yeah, no, I think it's not 5.6 for sure. 5.8 when I saw last year.

Narcis: 

Okay.

Arun:

It should be more than that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Narcis: 

Because we are 600,000. But that was last year data. So by now probably we're much more.

Arun:

Yeah, yeah, that is also true. I mean with the recent immigration from Ukraine. Immigrations. I think there's a lot of immigrants in the country.

Narcis: 

The numbers might, might be much higher.

Arun:

But the point is higher.

Narcis: 

5.1, 5.2 million days in Denmark and by 2080 there will be like 2 million.

Arun:

And, and, and some of the population are already old. So there will be a historical elderly population, Danish elderly population.

Narcis: 

And then we will live in the elderly lands. That will be Europe in the future. Welcome to the elderly lands where on the street you will see more elderly than young people. Seeing a young person or a child would be a rarity, an event in the, in the future. Again, this, this kind of doom scenarios is based on the fact that maybe Europe will not allow any more people to come into it. You know, imagine that right wingers coming power in, in Europe. They build the wall around Europe and be like, okay, this is us. We have to deal with whatever comes between ourselves. We are 500 million people. Let's see what we can do about it. If that happens, then we will shrink to half. We will be 250 million people. And you'll be like, I don't know if there's a movie that can really screen this, but imagine coming to a elderly home where there's a lot of old people. Well, imagine that elderly home becoming the whole society.

Arun:

Oh my God. Then what about they like physical labor, right? It'll be lacking a lot of physical labor. How about nursing robots? Robots? But you can't replace everything.

Narcis: 

Well, either that or they have to not build those walls.

Arun:

Yeah, that is also true. Yeah.

Narcis: 

You know, the reality will be that no matter, this will never happen. Because I know that we will see reason at some point and they will allow people to come. They're still allowing today. But even if the worst happens and the walls happen, those walls will be tear down at some point because some other people will see that this situation is really going bad. So a lot of things will happen. All I can guarantee you, Aaron, is that our life will be very interesting, is that a lot of crazy things will happen during our lifetime and we will see some. Some severe changes in society and in the way the world work works. And it'll be fun. We might see. Yeah, well, some of it will not be fun because we're also international story. We might end up in some camps here and there, but let's hope we don't get there.It's too soon, right?

Arun:

I hope not.

Narcis: 

Well, if more internationals in Denmark are getting involved in as many political parties as possible and are there present or where the decision making is, is happening, then we can prevent such situations, at least here in Denmark. So if you having some free time at home and you want to do something useful, go sign up for a party. You don't have to be a citizen. You don't even have to speak Danish, to be honest. You just have to.

Arun:

So internationals can be a party. Can. Can start a party in Denmark?

Narcis: 

Yeah, of course. Start party, be a party member, whatever. I suggest to be honest, to be a party member, it's easier to. You know, in Denmark, parties are very like a tradition thing. There's very few parties that are old, very old, 100 years old. And there's a few which are very new, but they're not doing super well. And usually the new ones, they go away very fast while the traditional ones are very well put in there in place. Right. There's people who voted the same party because their grand grandparents were voting the sameparty. You have to understand this is a traditional thing. There are people who do their. Because you're social Democrats, you do the wedding in a certain way. If you're liberals, you do the wedding in another way. That, that's how deep is the, the choices, the political choices in Denmark. So that's why I always suggest join an existing party, especially traditional old party and become part of that community and you'll see a different Denmark. Simply, you know, all these questions, the quest of finding a friend. There is your friend.He's waiting for you.

Arun:

Arun::sists I think we have covered a lot of topics today. The one thing that I really excites me in being part of this podcast is I'm getting educated while we have this conversation from your know how and also your experiences. And I think it has been a pleasure sofar. This is the second episode we have, we have had and I hope we have more of these in the coming future. Do you have any final comments or thoughts before we wind up this podcast for today?

Narcis: 

I think we should let people know that these first two episodes were a trial run. We wanted to see how it works, how it, how it feels. And then we will properly start in three weeks, right, Arun? I think three weeks from now.

Arun:

Yes.

Narcis: 

So we will start in three weeks from now. I will have an amazing microphone that I'm not using right now. So the quality of audio will definitely increase. Maybe we will have.

Arun:

Narcis will probably make a song for us and then sing.

Narcis: 

Let's see. Yeah, put the pin on it. Maybe we can expand on the format, invite some people over to join us in these conversations and tell us what works for you. Should we have a more easy going conversation or do you think that we should be more straight on the point so that you can learn as much as possible from this thing? But of course it will also have to fit with the way it works for us. Yeah, so that, that was, that was it for me. I had fun for this first two sessions. It's. I'm used to audio and I didn't. Well, I'm actually used to video as well. I have done plenty of live streams.

Arun:

I think both, both are good because videos are really good and powerful when you communicate in different platform, for example Instagram or LinkedIn, for example. And I think these audio podcasts I think you have a solid base who listens to a podcast in Spotify and Apple Podcast. I think what we're doing right now is really cool, in my opinion. I think both formats complement each other. With the new Spotify, we have a chance to see and listen the same time. So you can actually switch between two modes. New Spotify features. So it's a video podcast.

Narcis: 

When is that coming up?

Arun:

It's already there.

Narcis: 

So we could actually upload this when we come back in three weeks.

Arun:

Also on Spotify, it's already live. The first episode is updated in a video format so people could actually stream and see video plus audio. So they can actually lock their phone while driving and listen to the podcast and then they can actually see when they have the time. So it's a two way as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's already live. So for the audio, for the people who are listening, you now have a chance to also see an experience Video podcast in the plastic.

Narcis: 

If there's something you want to see different, if you want us to do anything different, then let us know. See what? If it's possible to, to add anything to. To this, but otherwise it's imagine. I don't know. We could expand on having like this Friday Saturday drinks with us.Right? Have a, have a glass of wine. Let's sit around and let's talk about life in Denmark. If you. If you guys want us to invite more people, say so.

Arun:

Yeah.

Narcis: 

And then we can, can definitely make it happen.

Arun:

So.

Narcis: 

Or should we. Does. Does this. Can we. Can we allow people to just enter the call while they're listening? This is not live.

Arun:

Sorry, this is not live. But we can actually invite with links so we can add one more person to the con, to the conversation. Yes. Yeah. And then, then we are already in two different zones in Denmark. So you're from Alpo and I'm living in Copenhagen now. But then we can always add people to the conversation.

Narcis: 

Yeah, we should. We should also think about the gender balance, right? We should allow the. I mean, we have to consider also the other half of the population.

Arun:

Equality is fine, but as long as we have something interesting to talk about, I think it shouldn't be a problem. Right?

Narcis: 

Yeah, of course.

Arun:

Yeah.

Narcis: 

Otherwise, thank you so much for today and looking forward to see all you. All of you in now, three weeks from now.

Arun:

Hey.