6 Reasons Why the Dutch are Happier than Americans

if the meaning of life is the pursuit of happiness who's happier americans or the dutch hello and welcome back to my channel my name is david and in this video i want to talk about the differences between american and dutch culture and how these differences affect our happiness levels [Music] life liberty and the pursuit of happiness this is written in the us declaration of independence but when it comes to the actual pursuit of happiness in today's day and age how does a place like the u.s compare to the netherlands well according to the world happiness report generally europeans seem to be the happiest people in the world they're generally at the very top of these rankings and if you look at the past rankings the us comes out at number 14 compared to the netherlands at number five and this is based on life evaluation questions such as gdp social support corruption freedom life expectancy take life expectancy as an example the typical american will live up to around the age of 79 compared to 82 years for the typical dutch so on average the dutch live a few years longer than the typical american now when you look at general happiness levels for the u.s it's fallen over the past few decades which begs the question why what happened and why in general are the dutch happier than the typical american student debt is a big part of american culture and it doesn't take a scientist to understand that when you have a lot of student debt you might be more stressed out and when you're more stressed out you tend to be less happy and america has a lot of student debt in fact the average american has 37 000 dollars in student debt compare that with the netherlands where the average dutch person has around 14 000 euros or 16 000 in student debt so why is this so why does america have so much student debt well it's quite simple it's extremely expensive to study in the us if you look at the cost of tuition if you want to attend a four-year college a four-year private college in the u.s expect to pay around 37 000 dollars in tuition alone per year it's a bit cheaper if you go to a public school if you go to a public university expect to pay anywhere between ten to thirty thousand dollars per year in tuition depending if it's in state or you come out of state and if you go to a state school or community college it's a lot cheaper but in general if you go to a four-year school university in the us expect to pay around a hundred thousand dollars in tuition alone now compare this to the netherlands where the average cost of tuition for one year it's only around twenty five hundred dollars so when you compare a four-year degree in the us a hundred thousand dollars compared to a four-year degree in the netherlands ten thousand dollars it's a lot cheaper to study in the netherlands and i also think this has a big effect on people's careers as well and what people study you see when you can afford to change careers in a place like the netherlands you have more time to think about what you might enjoy what you might like to do what kind of job you might like and actually know quite a few people who decided to change their careers or do another bachelor's here in the netherlands because it is affordable now in the us if you decide to study something like art history especially in a place like san francisco it's going to be difficult for you to repay that back afterwards when it comes to finding a job unless you come from a wealthy family but if you don't then you really have to consider okay how am i going to repay my education i remember for myself in my first year of university i actually decided to study marine biology because i always had a fascination with the oceans but after the first quarter i thought okay what am i going to do with a marine biology degree what kind of job would i get how much debt would i have and that really stressed me out so immediately afterwards i switched to economics because i wanted to go the safe route and that's very common in the u.s for people to think about not what they might want to study but what type of degree would get me a good job to help pay off my student loans the other thing that i want to add is that when you have an education system like the us where there's a lot of competition that causes a lot of stress and it inhibits the learning and so there's been so many studies that show when you're stressed out you learn less so as a result i think dutch students learn a lot more because they're less stressed out as well and this happiness starts at a very young age in fact in childhood where play fun relax is a very big part of dutch culture in fact dutch kids are the happiest kids in the world and that that's because they believe that having fun being relaxed playing is a very pivotal transformational part of childhood and we know from research how important childhood is so if a child learns how to play how to be relaxed that can flow into adulthood as well i remember when i started my master's program here in the first week we did presentations about our childhoods and our education systems where we came from and when i presented i talked about high school how stressful it was sats gpas extracurriculars to try to get into a good college i was very stressed out and when the dutch students came and did their presentation they said that life was pretty stress-free up until university in fact they didn't even know what stress was until university they didn't get homework until their teenage years actually kids here they don't get homework up until their teenage years so childhood and being a student here is quite relaxed because play is a very big part of dutch culture [Music] oh hey i should really stop working because it's past 5 p.m as an american living and working in europe it's still a bit difficult for me to shut down because i still have that work work work mentality that there's always work to be done that i might fall behind it's built into the dna of the american culture right it stems from education and it flows into the workplace as well and as a result americans work more on average per week than the typical dutch whereas here when i first got here it was weird to see people leaving at 5 00 5 30 and for me i never left that early if i did i always felt a bit weird about it because no one else was leaving at five five thirty i usually left normally around six seven sometimes eight o'clock and that's because it's built into the work culture in the u.s and it's a good and also bad thing as well when you work so much there's that ambition that drive to to create something amazing but at the same time people here value different things as well they value having a bit more balance in their lives and take a look at vacation days for example in the u.s people don't get that many vacation days actually the federal government does not guarantee a minimum paid vacation days per person it depends on the company whereas in countries like the netherlands in the netherlands we get a minimum of 20 days per year and it depends on the company for example i get 25 days per year and most people here take them most people here take all the vacation days per year whereas in the u.s it's a bit different it's a bit weird because the u.s is a country that has the most unused vacation days left at the end of each year which begs the question why and i think it has to deal with fear fear of falling behind fear of potentially getting replaced fear of taking time off when no one else around you is taking time off but here it's the norm especially during summertime when everyone else is out of the office taking their holidays so it becomes the norm here for people to take time off to relax and they actually get the days off to relax as well also take a look at sickly for example in the u.s there's no federal mandate that guarantees paid sick leave for an employee it depends on the state for example in california now you get one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked now in a place like the netherlands which has i believe one of the best policies in the world if you're sick you get paid 70 of your salary for two years that's pretty good right so as a result of all of these federal policies and also inherently this fear that's built into the american work culture i think people here in the netherlands are generally happier because they have more vacation time to spend with their family friends themselves they actually take the vacation time as well and also there's not as much fear in this country of getting fired and actually having worked in hr now for two years i can say that for employees here it's actually really hard for them to get fired whereas in the u.s getting fired that's a real thing which leads me to talk about a very important point i want to make about happiness the difference between standing out in the u.s versus standing in or being average in the netherlands because in the u.s we grow up thinking that we're the best that we want to be the best that we can be we want to stand out by going to a good school getting a good job we want to stand out by the clothes that we wear the car that we drive the people that we hang out with it's really about standing out being unique compare that with the netherlands where it's the exact opposite it's about standing in it's about being the same there's a dutch saying that goes something like act normal then you're crazy enough because being the same being average that's built into the society here take a look at the clothes people wear i think people dress quite fashionably here but they also dress quite similarly as well take a look at the food it doesn't really stand out take a look at the buildings they kind of look the same as well the weather's kind of the same as well most days of the year it's rainy gloomy cloudy people bike here and when people bike in public when they dress the same the buildings look the same everything's really the same but there's a beauty in that because you're not comparing yourself as much you have less comparison points and when you're comparing yourself less then you become happier because in the u.s the coach is really about comparing yourself to other people that's essentially the rat race it's running on this treadmill where nothing is ever enough compare that to the netherlands where acting normal then you're crazy enough well i want to add a few more things to say about this rat race that's inherent in all parts of the world but especially the us this rat race well it's a mindset it's this competition for power for wealth and when i first came here what i noticed was at least from my american perspective was that people weren't very ambitious in the workplace and then i met this friend from amsterdam he told me that people here aren't very ambitious when it comes to work because of how the system's built here the higher up that they go the more taxes they have to pay and also you don't gain as much money when you go up the ladder as compared to the us and so now i understand why people don't go and kill themselves to try to climb up the corporate ladder because they get taxed more also they don't earn that much more because the difference between a normal employee here and say the ceo it's not as much as say the us where the gap is a lot bigger where someone could be earning fifty thousand dollars in the u.s and the ceo could be making 50 million dollars so really from a professional point of view there's really no big incentive because how the system is structured here it favors being average right you can live a pretty high quality of life just being average and when you don't have that stress to climb up the corporate ladder and when you don't see people around you with that same level of ambition then you're less stressed and you're a lot happier as well [Music] well let's talk about health care in a study of 11 of the highest income countries around the world they compared the healthcare systems of these countries which countries had the best systems which countries had the worst health care systems and the us came in last place norway and the netherlands came in at one and two so why is this so well the u.s has always had a reputation a bad reputation when it comes to health care not everyone in the us has health care coverage not everyone has universal health care coverage 92 percent of the us population has health care coverage leaving 8 percent but 8 percent of a big population that's a big number whereas in a country like the netherlands almost 100 percent of people living in this country have health care because it's required by law to have at least a basic plan of health care and let's be honest health care in the u.s is expensive it's really expensive for example when you look at deductibles the amount that each person has to pay out of pocket before healthcare kicks in in the u.s it's seventeen hundred dollars per person in a place like the netherlands it's around four hundred euros so that's a big difference the amount that each person has to pay out of pocket in the u.s as compared to the netherlands and i'm sure we've heard of these horror stories of people in the us paying 600 dollars for a band-aid 20 25 000 for an mri it's extravagant these prices people pay when they don't have insurance or when they don't have the proper insurance as well so just like education the health care system in the u.s it's sort of like a business a business to make money and as a result i believe generally people living in a country like the netherlands are generally happier because they have access to affordable health care they're not worried about paying an extravagant sum for an operation or for something small as well so here's a story about myself when i first arrived in this country the netherlands i was walking in the park and i got bit by a dog by a pit bull on the wrist and there was some blood and luckily there were some police officers nearby they told me to go to the hospital nearby the er and immediately in my mind i thought how much money is this going to cost to go to the er just to get a shot because in the u.s i remember things are really expensive even if you do have health care and so i was hesitant in going to the er but eventually because it was important that i needed to get a shot within two days i went to the er and the er redirected me to a nearby general practitioner and i got my shot and it was free it was covered by my health care but i just had this fear in my head how much would it cost me even though i had health care so cycling is a big part of dutch culture and that's a big reason why dutch people are a lot healthier than americans because here everyone cycles everyone walks there's actually more bicycles than humans here and the infrastructure here is built for cycling so when you walk everywhere and you cycle everywhere you tend to be healthier compared to the typical american who spends his her time driving stuck in a car i remember when i lived in la i had a local supermarket two blocks away but i would drive there because that's what people do in la they drive everywhere and so that is a big difference between the us and the netherlands people here are healthier because they cycle they walk everywhere compared to americans who drive everywhere i can't believe it took me 30 minutes just to get a burger from mcdonald's that's not really fast food here in the netherlands but actually that's the point there's not as many temptations and fast food here is not really fast food compared to the us and i remember when i lived in the u.s in la things were open late at night it was extremely convenient and i would get tacos late at night i would drive to del taco get 10 tacos and finish that in 30 minutes that became a common thing a very easy thing to do and you can see why americans are so obese they're actually the most obese country in the oecd countries the the wealthy countries and it's because there's so much fast food things are so convenient and they're open 24 7 in many places as well compared to the netherlands here things aren't open 24 7. you don't have as many temptations to go get fast food late at night and when you do have that craving and it's cold and it's raining outside you don't even want to go outside so that's really a simple formula right for being healthy for being happy when you don't have as many temptations you don't go eat bad food and you add in cycling and walking and that's really that simple formula for fitness for good health and when you have good health then you become happier sounds simple right life liberty and the pursuit of happiness i think we as americans can learn a thing or two from the dutch when it comes to this pursuit of happiness but i'm not saying that americans should be exactly like the dutch no i don't think so there's a reason why america is the most powerful country in the world with so many innovative solutions but what if we toned it down a bit can we still achieve the same with a happier workforce happier kids well the studies seem to say so linking happiness with more productivity and achievements as well but i don't know we'll see these are my opinions as a californian living studying and working in the netherlands for about three years now what are your thoughts what are your opinions thank you so much for staying until the very end i wish you well i wish you happiness and i hope you take care

Channel: David Wen

Views: 66,508

Keywords: usa, netherlands, amsterdam, why i left california, why i left the us, happiness, world happiness report, wellbeing, stress, how i see the us, debt, student debt, rat race, work to live, live to work, differences between us and netherlands, differences between america and europe, differences between usa and netherlands, cultural differences, cultural differences between us and europe, #dutch, Amsterdam, California, Los Angeles

Id: Wbdp9Qr6jjc

Length: 20min 26sec (1226 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021