Danes and Inequality: Private Schools and Migrants Who Sleep in Sandboxes

Published: Jan. 25, 2015, 10:18 a.m.

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I was on Danish morning TV recently, which isn\\u2019t really something to boast about.\\xa0 In a country of 5 million, 10 guests a show, 365 days a year \\u2013 you do the math.\\xa0 Just about everyone gets on TV sooner or later.\\xa0\\xa0 Some of my friends and colleagues mentioned that they had seen me, stumbling through with my imperfect Danish, trying to promote my book, How to Live in Denmark.\\xa0 But just SOME of my friends and colleagues, not all.\\xa0 Specifically, it was my friends and colleagues who work in trendy creative industries - advertising, app designers, actors.

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That\\u2019s because I was on TV at 8:45 in the morning, when people in those industries are just getting out of bed in preparation to roll into the office around 10. \\xa0

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My friends who have more conventional office jobs, like working in a bank, have to be their desk at 9am, so some of them had seen teasers \\u2013 you know, coming up next, someone who doesn\\u2019t speak Danish properly, trying to promote a book \\u2013 but they hadn\\u2019t seen the show itself.\\xa0

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And my friends who do real, physical work had no idea I was on TV at all. Airport tarmac staff, postal carriers, builders. They start work at 7am. Or even earlier, as you\\u2019ll know if you\\u2019ve ever had your deep sleep interrupted by a Danish builder banging on something outside your house at, say, 5:30 in the morning.\\xa0 My personal Danish builder wake-up record is 4:45 in the morning, during the light summer months. They were driving a motorized crane past my fifth floor window.

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While there\\u2019s no official class system in Denmark, there is when it comes to working hours.\\xa0 And working clothing \\u2013 people who work with their hands often wear blue jumpsuits to and from work, or painters pants, or bright fluorescent vests if they work outside in the dark.\\xa0 While people in the creative industries wear aggressively ugly eyeglasses, and unusual shoes, and the men have chic little Hugo Boss scarves around their necks.

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Different clothes, different starting times, that\\u2019s not big news, but recently other forms of inequality have been increasing in Denmark.

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In fact, according to the Denmark\'s Statistics, the GINI coefficient, which measures inequality, has been rising faster in Denmark than in any other country in Europe.\\xa0 It\'s now 27.9, compared with 22 at the turn of the century.\\xa0

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