How are countries like Norway and Switzerland not so densely populated considering the fact that they are portrayed as nearly heaven in all aspects?
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I think you got that a bit wrong.
Switzerland is very densely populated compared to most other countries and is growing every year due to tens of thousands of immigrants from other European countries.
But it also turns out both Switzerland and Norway aren’t so much heaven if you are a recent immigrant. You can easily move there if you are from Europe and have a job offer. And plenty people do that – especially to Switzerland from neighboring countries. But both countries have few low skilled jobs available, so it’s mostly qualified workers whose jobs are in demand
I think you got that a bit wrong.
Switzerland is very densely populated compared to most other countries and is growing every year due to tens of thousands of immigrants from other European countries.
But it also turns out both Switzerland and Norway aren’t so much heaven if you are a recent immigrant. You can easily move there if you are from Europe and have a job offer. And plenty people do that – especially to Switzerland from neighboring countries. But both countries have few low skilled jobs available, so it’s mostly qualified workers whose jobs are in demand
I think you got that a bit wrong.
Switzerland is very densely populated compared to most other countries and is growing every year due to tens of thousands of immigrants from other European countries.
But it also turns out both Switzerland and Norway aren’t so much heaven if you are a recent immigrant. You can easily move there if you are from Europe and have a job offer. And plenty people do that – especially to Switzerland from neighboring countries. But both countries have few low skilled jobs available, so it’s mostly qualified workers whose jobs are in demand
As other posters have said, those countries have huge geographical issues which historically preventing large population growth.
Now that food isn’t a problem, the biggest challenges to immigration are economic and cultural. Economic and that those nations have an extremely high cost of living meaning you need a good income to live, plus strong labour laws which discourage businesses using cheap non-native labour. Culturally, very few people looking for a new home are likely to learn Norwegian. It’s a completely useless langauge in much of the world, unlike England or French for instance.
In terms of local population growth, as a highly education and wealthy society, families are generally small, limiting growth.
As other posters have said, those countries have huge geographical issues which historically preventing large population growth.
Now that food isn’t a problem, the biggest challenges to immigration are economic and cultural. Economic and that those nations have an extremely high cost of living meaning you need a good income to live, plus strong labour laws which discourage businesses using cheap non-native labour. Culturally, very few people looking for a new home are likely to learn Norwegian. It’s a completely useless langauge in much of the world, unlike England or French for instance.
In terms of local population growth, as a highly education and wealthy society, families are generally small, limiting growth.
Geography. Most of Norway is not suitable for dense population. Switzerland is also incredibly mountainous.
Geography. Most of Norway is not suitable for dense population. Switzerland is also incredibly mountainous.
Geography. Most of Norway is not suitable for dense population. Switzerland is also incredibly mountainous.
Heaven is a very subjective term. It’s fair to say those countries tend to have a great social safety net, good schools and people score high on health and happiness indexes. That said, you all hear young people talk about limited socioeconomic mobility, they’re often very homogenous…
So why don’t people flock there? Neither country is really adjacent to or close to less well off countries. Sure their neighbors may not all enjoy the same standard of living, but most of their neighbors also have decent social safety nets as well as long and deep cultural identities. With respect to cultural identity, it’s hard to go into a homogenous place and maintain your cultural identity without consequence. On the proximity of poorer neighbors point, if you flip the US and Canada, Canada would receive the waves of economic migrants that the US does. If you flip Norway with Spain or Greece then Norway would have the groups of economic migrants coming in on boats.
Some of those countries are not super welcoming of foreigners who want to stay there AFAIK. From what I’ve heard in many of those countries, it’s hard to truly make the transition from you live there to you are from there. Not only do people have close knit social groups (largely because the cost of living makes social gatherings with friends and family more affordable than going out) but they’re not known for being welcoming of strangers into the group.
As others mentioned, their immigration process is also tough so you can’t generally rock up to the border and just stay, taking full advantage of the system for you and your current as well as future kids.
Last thing I’ll say is that those countries became “heaven” largely through shared values. When you let in too many different people the chances of having shared values decreases significantly and it puts the whole system at risk. You can check youtube and news articles for the fall out that’s occurred in some of those countries when the African and Middle Eastern migration to Europe was surging.
Heaven is a very subjective term. It’s fair to say those countries tend to have a great social safety net, good schools and people score high on health and happiness indexes. That said, you all hear young people talk about limited socioeconomic mobility, they’re often very homogenous…
So why don’t people flock there? Neither country is really adjacent to or close to less well off countries. Sure their neighbors may not all enjoy the same standard of living, but most of their neighbors also have decent social safety nets as well as long and deep cultural identities. With respect to cultural identity, it’s hard to go into a homogenous place and maintain your cultural identity without consequence. On the proximity of poorer neighbors point, if you flip the US and Canada, Canada would receive the waves of economic migrants that the US does. If you flip Norway with Spain or Greece then Norway would have the groups of economic migrants coming in on boats.
Some of those countries are not super welcoming of foreigners who want to stay there AFAIK. From what I’ve heard in many of those countries, it’s hard to truly make the transition from you live there to you are from there. Not only do people have close knit social groups (largely because the cost of living makes social gatherings with friends and family more affordable than going out) but they’re not known for being welcoming of strangers into the group.
As others mentioned, their immigration process is also tough so you can’t generally rock up to the border and just stay, taking full advantage of the system for you and your current as well as future kids.
Last thing I’ll say is that those countries became “heaven” largely through shared values. When you let in too many different people the chances of having shared values decreases significantly and it puts the whole system at risk. You can check youtube and news articles for the fall out that’s occurred in some of those countries when the African and Middle Eastern migration to Europe was surging.
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