Danes and Inequality: Private Schools and Migrants Who Sleep in Sandboxes

Hello and welcome to the How to Live in Denmark podcast. I'm Cassandra Melish. I was on Danish morning TV recently, which. Isn't really something to boast about. In a country of 5 million people, 10 guests a show, 365 days a year, you do the math. Just about everyone gets on TV sooner or later. Now, some of my friends and colleagues mentioned that they had seen me stumbling through with my imperfect Danish, trying to promote my book, How to Live in Denmark. But just some of my friends and colleagues, not all. Specifically, it was my friends and colleagues who work in the— Trendy creative industries— advertising, app designers, actors. That's because I was on TV at 8:45 in the morning, when people in those industries are just getting out of bed in preparation to roll into the office around 10. Now, my friends who have more conventional office jobs, like working in a bank, have to be at their desks at 9 AM, so some of them had seen teasers, you know, Coming up next, someone who doesn't speak Danish properly trying to promote a book. But they hadn't seen the show itself. And my friends who do real physical work had no idea I was on TV at all. Airport tarmac staff, postal carriers, builders—they start work at 7 a.m. or even earlier, as you'll know if you've ever had your deep sleep interrupted by a Danish builder banging on something outside your house at say. 5:30 in the morning. While there's no official class system in Denmark, there is when it comes to working hours. And working clothing. People who work with their hands often wear blue jumpsuits to and from work, or painter's pants, or bright fluorescent vests if they work outside in the dark. While people in the creative industries wear aggressively ugly eyeglasses and unusual shoes, and the men have chic little Hugo Boss scarves around their necks. Different clothes, different starting times— that's not big news. But recently, other forms of inequality have been increasing in Denmark. In fact, according to the official Danish statistics, Denmark's Gini coefficient, which measures inequality, has been rising faster than any other country in Europe. It's now 27.9 compared with 22 in the year 2000. And that's a problem because Denmark is a culture and a society that is built on equality, dating back to the Protestant tradition. Denmark's great agricultural industries still operate as cooperatives. There's a lot of cooperative housing in the cities. There's even a government ministry for equality, Ligestillingsministeriet. The Danish word for discrimination, forskelsbehandling, Literally, different treatment sends chills up the spines of Danes. It's an ugly word. Forskelsbehandling. Of course, the Danish tax system is set up to create equality, with high-income earners taxed a lot. And Denmark has tax-financed health services and tax-financed university education that are free for the users. But one small country cannot entirely fight against global. Global trends. Like most places in the world, more people in Denmark want to move to the big cities than want to move to the countryside. In Denmark, that mostly means Copenhagen, Odense, Aarhus, Sønderborg. These are places they can work in the knowledge economy. If you've owned a house in the Copenhagen area for the past 25 years, from the time before house prices started to rise, you are now rich. Some digital entrepreneur married to an organic pastry chef now wants to buy your house for a minimum of 3 million crowns, no matter what shape it's in. Now, if you have the same house in a rural area like Lolland, a couple hours' drive away, it might be worth one-tenth of that, if you can sell it at all. In parts of the Danish countryside, many towns have very few jobs to offer and Very few young people. And like most places in the world, well-off Danes want to make sure that their kids get the best possible education. And increasingly, that does not mean public schools. The percentage of kids in Denmark who go to private schools rises every year. It's now about 16% nationally, but in Copenhagen it's almost a quarter. Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the left-wing Prime Minister of Denmark, Lives in Copenhagen and sends her kid to a private school. A few years ago, Mette Frederiksen, the left-wing Justice Minister, gave a passionate speech about the selfishness of private school parents and how it was important for a healthy society that well-off kids mix with poor kids in the public schools. That was before Mette Frederiksen had her own children. Who now go to private schools. One interesting point about private schools in Denmark is they're not that expensive. For 1,800 crowns a month— that's about $300 US or €250— you can send your child to a private school in Denmark. The only trick is that you have to get on a waiting list very early, preferably shortly after your child is born. Even so, private schools perpetuate inequality Because they take a lot of kids with capable, involved parents out of the public schools, and they create a little separate society that can last a lifetime. Remember, Danish people often keep their kindergarten friends for their entire lives. A kindergarten network becomes a job network 30 years later. Also, private schools are almost entirely made up of ethnic Danes. 1 in 5 babies born in Denmark last year did not have ethnic Danish parents. Yet those kids never seem to end up in the private schools. Instead, they end up bunched together in public schools in not all that great neighborhoods. The school up the street from me is 80% children who are not ethnic Danes. 80%! That school is still a good school. It was just entirely rebuilt and has great facilities— nice gym, wonderful playground. But those kids and the kids who go to private school may never meet. Let's face it, in general, people who are not ethnic Danes are less equal in Denmark. Particularly true for Palestinian Danes, Iraqi Danes, Somali Danes. They have higher rates of unemployment, lower rates of education in many categories, and higher rates of crime and punishment. Yet they're still part of the system. And once you're part of the Danish system, you can be sure you'll have enough to eat, a roof over your head, no matter what type of life you lead. What troubles me, though, is that over the past few years, there are more people in Denmark who don't even have this much. While political refugees get taken care of, these are economic migrants, often from Southern Europe or Africa, just here to look for any kind of work, and there's no infrastructure to help them. Most Danish homeless shelters cannot admit anyone who is not Danish. You need to show a Danish yellow health card to get in. They do that in order to get a subsidy from the government, and if you don't have the card, there's virtually no place for you to go. In my neighborhood, these migrant guys have been sleeping in parks or by the railroad tracks, or there's a whole group that set up a camp behind a supermarket down the road. No social service workers are assigned to these nameless people, and the police wouldn't help. So the supermarket workers did their best to watch over them until winter came and they left. The police did intervene in another case last year when migrant workers were sleeping in a local playground. Kids would come to play first thing in the morning and some exhausted man would be lying in the sandbox. That one made the local papers. But in general, these people are silent, nameless, and they're not much discussed in the media. In fact, they may be the only people in Denmark who have never been on TV. And that's the How to Live in Denmark podcast for this week. The How to Live in Denmark book is now going to its 3rd printing. You can get one on howtoliveindenmark.com or at a shop called Made in Denmark at Brøllæggegade 6 in Copenhagen. You can follow us on Facebook at How to Live in Denmark or on Twitter at How to Live in DK. See you next time. Bye.