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In the previous episode, we talked to William about his life in Sweden, and we're gonna continue with that topic today.
Do they have laws about household chores? Like who does the dishes and all that?
I would say it's quite equal I think. I think in a young family, both parents… they’re home at different times, like one might be working one might be home, so they both know how to cook, they both know how to clean, because they have to share the responsibility. But that doesn't seem to be any problem. I’ve never known of any problem with it.
I’ve got a young daughter and when her boyfriend they are living together and they share, and it seems to work.
And they can't usually rely on their parents like young couple they can't really rely on their parents for to take care of their baby, right?
That's correct. I mean, most of the young couples they are both working and probably their parents are also working, so the grandparents of the kids are working. So they rely a lot more on the service of day cares which is called dagvård in Swedish, and kindergarten and they go to kindergarten quite early, very early because both young couples need to work. This is an expensive place to live.
Yeah, how expensive we talking about constantly here, northern European countries are very, very expensive, exactly how expensive.
I would say very, very expensive.
You lived in Geneva. One of the more expensive places in the world. Is it more expensive than Geneva?
I would say people in Sweden they live for the most part from paycheck to paycheck. I would say most Swedes especially young to middle aged Swedes don't have a lot of money in savings. They live well, but they don't normally have a lot of money. It's an expensive place to live.
But is it also because they have very good social welfares? So there's always multiple safety nets so that they don't have to have a lot of savings.
There are excellent social welfare. The education system is free, Medicare, medical aids for Swedish citizens, Swedish residents is free. It's a very small amount, you have to pay upfront and then that same treatment continues for until they fix you. In that respect it’s quite cheap; but the day to day life, the cost of living…is very high. …is quite expensive.
Yeah, one of the things I noticed when I first went to Sweden is I noticed a lot of young people had exceptionally gorgeous apartments. I really couldn't figure this out. I thought maybe everybody's got rich parents. But then I found a new word and I think it's the origin of the word rent, as in paying the rent, because the word “ränta” in Swedish means interest, like the interest on the loan. And they only when they buy an apartment or a house, they are only paying off the interest. They're not paying off the principal.
Oh, not the principal.
Not a capital. No, no.
But does that mean they still…well, from my perspective, then they still don't own it, though, because if they always have that principal that they have yet to pay, if they're only paying interest.
That's right. And the ideas you move up the property ladder, you buy a piece of property, you pay the interest on your loan, the property appreciates, and when you sell it, you sell it for a profit, and then you move the profit into the next place and so on.
I see. Seems to work.
I was actually gonna ask you about homeownership, so I guess that makes it easy for people to buy and own… to get their…
Homeownership is really easy, buying property in Scandinavia is very, very simple, it’s very straightforward, it is.
The other thing that I'm really curious to know is that so far we have been grouping Scandinavian countries together, but I'm sure for Swedish people, in general, they don't feel like they're the same as their neighbors like Norwegians or Danish.
No. It's like within the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, within Norway, Finland, and Iceland to a lesser extent. There