Language is something I would relish learning in the actual setting of Sweden. Having learned Japanese for three years in Japan, it was (and remains) a difficult thing to master and I suspect conversational Swedish would be simpler to pick up, at least. My short time spent in Sweden, the people I met were very happy just to hear my few halting phrases of their language, as are my Swedish friends here, in California. That's always encouraging.
About housing (and prices of things overall), yeah, I suppose things are reasonable relative to our respective hometowns. My impression was that local salaries were also lower, though. My recollection from a couple years ago was that front-end devs (my current employment, 6-ish YoE) were making around SEK 400k-500k/year, which is a good deal less than my current salary. Perhaps my view of tech salaries is highly skewed due to my location, though. Also, this conversation does revolve around remote work, so maybe a moot point.
As a Swede who's been in the US for 5 years, what you say is true, but it's more nuanced than that. If you're poor, Sweden is so much better than the US, not even in the same league. As a software developer though, you'll earn roughly twice as much, enough to cover all the benefits of living in Sweden and probably quite a bit more. Engineers and technical people are not paid what they're worth in Sweden, I have no idea why.
But then again, you'll be wealthy in a hugely unequal society. The benefit of the Swedish system is that everybody gets those benefits and safety net, improving the society as a whole.
Here are a few other benefits of living in the US:
- THE place to be if you're in tech, there will never be an Apple or Google coming out of Sweden unfortunately
- More interesting career opportunities, you can do anything you want (if you're prepared to move around)
- Much more, better and affordable food
- Going out, eating, drinking, doing stuff in general doesn't break the bank
- You're not patronized in the same way (systembolaget, overbearing regulations etc, "we know what's best for you")
- Better weather (depending on where you are)
- A society much more friendly to immigrants (maybe counter intuitive). This is a big one. As a native Swede, you don't realize how much discrimination there is in Swedish society, even for highly educated professionals. People have to change their last name to something Swedish-sounding just to get an interview. In the US, nobody gives a shit where you're from, as long as you know what you're doing.
All in all though, I've decided to move back, for many of the reasons you listed, as well as a relatively sane political system, move vacation, parental leave and ease of travel. The biggest factor though is being closer to family and friends.
It is expensive to live there. If you're a programmer, you will live a far more comfortable life living and working in Poland than you would in Sweden, despite how much Swedes tend to look down their nose at the Polish.
I speak from experience.
If you're working a low/zero skill job, you would be far better off in Sweden, although the market is extremely competitive.
Sweden has a major problem with housing, so you can forget renting an apartment in a major city — you will spend roughly 18 years on a waiting list to be able to rent anything in the centre of Gothenburg. This isn't hyperbole.
Just about everyone speaks English. Some younger people actually speak English more correctly than a significant proportion of the English population in England. Unsurprisingly, learning Swedish language and culture helps you blend in. It's not a particularly difficult language anyway.
Yes. when I lived in Sweden, I noticed that Swedes in general have less stuff. Smaller housing, fewer cars, less ability to buy stuff, and even go out.
The average engineer salary was almost half (about 60%) of those in NYC and SF, while prices coffee/going out in Stockholm were almost the same as in NYC. Rent prices were lower though.
But, their quality of life seemed higher overall. Less stressful in general, more vacations and time off, more thoughtful planing of their cities, etc.
So, it seems like a tradeoff. If you are a blue collar or unskilled worker, Sweden would have been better, while you'd struggle in the US. But if you are a skilled worker (even blue collar, like plumber or electrician), you'd do better in the US.
I'd rather be a barista in Sweden than in the US, but I'd rather be an engineer in the US than in Sweden.
No, Sweden is my fourth country to live in but I haven't worked in another European country. It can be expensive to live here yes; despite my salary being decent-but-not-lavish I still feel comfortable affording whatever I need to live and "play". In addition to what I consider a decent salary, six paid weeks off (with extra pay for vacation days + public holidays), various company subsidized benefits, nice public infrastructure, healthcare, etc all go to help with that. I guess the other responder's standards may be different, but personally as a programmer my living here feels very comfortable.
I didn't say you were far off in general, I said everything you said happens to not be applicable to my experience (or that of most of my team members), and your comment seemed to be providing information about living in Sweden to someone who already lives in Sweden, which is why I figured you intended to reply to someone else.
As someone who grew up in Sweden, allow me to push back pretty hard on some of this :)
"the cost of living in Sweden is, on average, 20.9% lower than in the United States, while renting is 57.5% lower"
Maybe in USD terms, but within the local context, and frankly compared to other European countries, Sweden is not cheap, in fact it's incredibly expensive, and any savings you eke out will not be worth much abroad
"Sweden is well known for its free healthcare"
The healthcare is public and universal but mediocre at best - unless you get optional private addons, you're extremely lucky to get any care at all, whether at the ER or waiting in line for elective surgeries etc etc
The higher education, gender equality, generous parental leave systems etc etc are undeniably great and well functioning, and there's no arguing with the life expectancy figures
But I don't understand how Sweden can score well in Politically Stable or Safe - it's neither of those things
Add in the extremely long, dark winters and not-that-great weather even in summer, a culture of social isolation and more and all in all while it has its ups it's far from the most liveable place in the world IMO
that said I love these studies because they're always food for thought - what are HackerNews most livable places in the world?
I'm a swede and I used to live in the US, specifically the bay area, SF. I moved back to sweden 5 years ago and while I make less than half of what I did (~150k/year) while working and living in the US, my living standard here in sweden is so much better in every possible way.
I make roughly the equivalent of $70k/year before taxes here in Sweden (it's above average) but I pay less half of what I used to pay for a 2 room apartment in the bay area but instead I get a 300 m2 architectural designed lake house less than 20 minutes from my office. Buying a house of this size and good location in the bay area would cost millions of dollars. I paid less than $400k.
I work remote 3 days a week, I get 8 weeks of paid vacation a year (currently on vacation and I haven't been at work since 14th of december), universal healthcare plus free private healthcare (well "free" because I do pay $15 in fees once every visit) as one of my employee benefits, free lunches plus so called Rikskortet (can be used to buy meals at restaurants or groceries that for me covers the whole month), wellness benefits (basically means I get a free gym membership at whatever gym or physical activity I want), a company car ('17 Audi A7) where I only have to pay for gas which I rarely need to do because I live close to work and I work remote more than half the time.
So basically I pay roughly the equivalent of $1500 a month in total (mortage, utility bills, insurance, food etc) for my current stress free life these days compared to when I used to live and work in the US where I paid $4000 a month just in rent alone for a small apartment.
I'd say that I have a quite comfortable life at this point.
I lived in Sweden for seven years, and this is so far from the truth it's hilarious.
Relative quality of life is garbage in Sweden for a tech worker. Your life will be not that much better than if you work in Carlings selling plaid shirts to hard-rock hipsters.
My Swedish friends have decent jobs and still live unglamorous, frugal lives. As soon as I left Sweden, my quality of life completely transformed for the better.
You also have to compare the cities, let us say they are on equal terms in housing shortage.
Stockholm is piss dark and cold 8 month a year, in Silicon Valley not so much right? All the big boys are in SV and you earn more and pay less in taxes. You also get other perks from living in the USA.
So you are a talented guy, Stockholm or SV? The choice is obvious, SV. So I don't see the point in trying to fight for a place to stay in Stockholm when you can go somewhere else better.
Not only that, just the last 5 years have done much harm to the housing in Stockholm due to mass immigration and now immigration peaks at 2000 people per day so expect it to get even worse.
Better wages sums up most of what I've heard from people living in Sweden. They must be staying in Sweden rather than moving to Norway for a good reason though.
Sweden has a pretty easy immigration path, is fairly friendly to immigrants, most natives speak English, and has a large tech community with not enough local talent.
I've lived and worked in the UK, the Bay Area, and Stockholm. Sweden does not pay as well but the employee/union perks & lifestyle is night and day compared to the other two. I definitely miss Bay Area salaries but I'm getting more holiday, I get paid extra for going on holiday, I get a years paternity leave & IVF bonuses, I get free healthcare (and most employers offer free private healthcare), I get a company car for very cheap, rent/properties are cheap and actually pretty large, the cities are built around nature, poverty is low, crime is low, people are happy...
I prefer the Nordic model so far!
Edit: I forgot the best one - unemployment insurance. If I get laid off I get my salary covered at 80% for 6 - 12 months (depends on the policy). This is through the union. Such a nice relief with all the layoffs happening in tech nowadays.
I'd only recommend moving to Sweden, if you have a family and want a stress free 37.5 hours job. Practically free, but very good healthcare and education for your kids, high pensions and unemployment benefits.
But on average you'll have to live in a lot smaller house/apartment, make less money after taxes, suffer the cold climate (unless you love winter sports). The startup scene is 1/1000th of the Valley.
Other Scandinavian countries are also doing quite well, way beyond what their size would suggest.
But also well beyond other countries with developed welfare systems, such as France. I think these discussions always miss one key factor: Language.
If you don't speak English quite well at an early age (already at 10-13 years old) you are much less likely to get into software development at an early age. If you don't get into software development at an early age, you are much less likely to do a software based startup when you are in your twenties. There is a thousand times as much documentation, conferences, tutorials, courses, online fora etc in English as in other languages and this is how new ideas in IT spread. Only months or years afterwards, it's translated to Spanish or Chinese, and only if it has caught on. Just about everything new in IT spreads through English, whether it's AI or web development or anything else.
The Scandinavian languages are not that different from English, the countries are small and consume a lot of music, movies, TV etc from the US/UK. Movies and TV have never been dubbed, except for toddlers. So for the last 50-60 years or more, Scandinavians have been quite good at English. Your average 70 year old Scandinavian speaks English better than your average 20 year old Italian. A drunkard on a bench in Scandinavia is likely to speak better English than most academics I've met in Southern or Eastern Europe.
We live in an era of software driven startups. It's easy to forget that it was not always like that. There were times when successful businesses were driven by mechanics (GM), electronics (Sony), chemistry (Kodak), trade or other factors. Now it's software, and whether your language, framework, or library of choice is C, C++, Python, Lisp, Java, PHP, JS, HTML, CSS, Tensorflow, React, or almost any other tech that the unicorns are built with, the new developments in that tech will initially have spread from English speakers to English speakers. The fact that the largest software companies in the last two decades have all been American then reinforces that trend.
I, as an American, decided to move to Sweden for all of the reasons GP posted, and despite your list of supposed downsides. A few observations after six months here:
* The Swedish summer more than makes up for the dark winter. Not that much colder than Chicago either.
* Taxes are high, but the benefits you get from the taxes are astounding, especially from an American perspective. Great roads, clean cities, amazing public transit, free healthcare, etc.
* Six weeks of vacation, over a year of maternity leave, etc. Enough said.
* Yes, the rental market in Stockholm sucks.
Honestly, Sweden is truly a democratic model that other countries should try following. I'm very happy with my decision to move here and wish I had discovered it sooner.
I don't know much about Sweden salaries but if it's close enough to general EU I believe it might be MUCH harder to get a net 50K job in Sweden than a net 100K job in the US.
Sure, in the US you will have less "prepaid" services or might need to pay much more for specific stuff but that's kind of the point of freedom of choices. You get to make your own mistakes without entering a collectivist group that on average is bound to make more costly mistakes.
I think it's all relative... I have two colleagues who moved from our offices on the Riviera to our offices in Stockholm, and they gained about 15% take-home salary each, with cheaper rents and public transport. I really don't think anyone's life in Sweden is garbage, as long as you can stand the winters
I think you're confusing income and standard of living.
The Swedish have a very high standard of living, from everything I've seen when I've visited it's comparable to the USA.
It's described by that famous pro-Swedish anti-American body the CIA as "enviable" in their world factbook and the UN Standard of living survey places them around 5th (the USA is around 10th - both vary year by year but not the order they come in).
Even were your suggestion true, it's as much about the legal protection you have in Sweden to go back to your job. Try 18 months out of work in the USA and I'm guessing that you might find getting back into the work place (particularly in IT where your skills are now rusty and dated) harder than you might think.
Language is something I would relish learning in the actual setting of Sweden. Having learned Japanese for three years in Japan, it was (and remains) a difficult thing to master and I suspect conversational Swedish would be simpler to pick up, at least. My short time spent in Sweden, the people I met were very happy just to hear my few halting phrases of their language, as are my Swedish friends here, in California. That's always encouraging.
About housing (and prices of things overall), yeah, I suppose things are reasonable relative to our respective hometowns. My impression was that local salaries were also lower, though. My recollection from a couple years ago was that front-end devs (my current employment, 6-ish YoE) were making around SEK 400k-500k/year, which is a good deal less than my current salary. Perhaps my view of tech salaries is highly skewed due to my location, though. Also, this conversation does revolve around remote work, so maybe a moot point.
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