zlacker

>>obscur+(OP)
> Norwegians are taking much more sick leave than a decade ago, driving up costs for health services. Student test scores have worsened more than in other Scandinavian countries

...COVID?

Norwegians are taking more sick leave after the largest mass-disabling event in generations?

And test scores are worse compared to other Scandinavian countries, like Sweden, which famously had very few COVID restrictions?

Must be the oil money

>>Steven+W2
Norway has a name for living off the welfare state as a grown up man: Nave, deriving from the social security service Nav and it has been like that for a decade at least.

Building a full social class of dependents of the government takes many years of demoralization and subversion of values.

>>ilived+C4
Of whose values? Demoralization of whom?

>>freeon+v5
Puritans can't stand the idea that someone else might be working less and/or having more fun.

>>rwmj+s7
It's questionable the amount of fun. Norway has fairly high depression rates and doing almost anything is very expensive. Even fully employed Norwegians on average go out to eat only a couple of times a year. They also travel less and have comparatively fewer recreational activities. I'm pretty sure that anyone living almost entirely on government assistance isn't doing much else but existing.

>>hattma+kh
Norway is middle of the list of countries by rate of depression: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/depressio...

It's not that surprising people spend less time eating out and travelling since it's a very cold country.