Happiness guaranteed! (Not clickbait!)
Stop shrieking antifascist lamentations on TikTok and pack your bags
Okay, disgusted Democratic voters, you really mean it this time, you’re not going to put up with another four years of misrule, you’re ditching the toxic “broligarchy” for a saner society. Some of you expat-curious are ordinary people fed up with the political situation, and others are Trump’s public critics stuffing go bags with cash. A YouTube video about “LEAVE the US” has gotten half a million views in two weeks.
But how do you actually “move to europe”? As promised, here’s an outline of some options.
There are a few avenues toward a residence permit, all with conditions and obstacles. The surest way to gain full access to the splendors of the European lifestyle is citizenship. You can’t apply for it directly though, except in some countries that offer investors a “golden visa.” But several countries allow people to qualify on the basis of their ancestry.
The Danish rules are restrictive and complicated, however. You must have a Danish parent, and you must have been born within a specific period. Italy and Germany, for example, are more lenient, and citizenship in any EU country entitles you to live and work anywhere in the region. Rattle the family tree.
Scheming to avert a demographic crisis
The most likely route is a work permit, and young professionals are probably the most inclined to take the leap abroad. “[F]oreign labour wants to go to Denmark because of quality of life and security in this country,” says Andreas Malby of the Boston Consulting Group. Denmark is in fact desperate for “international talent.”
As in the rest of the continent, the birthrate is low, the population is aging, and economic growth is lackluster at best. According to Mads Hougaard of the Ferring pharma firm, his industry alone will need to add 10,000 employees in the region, which includes Malmø, Sweden. The shortfall for the country as whole is estimated at 130,000 by 2033.
In 2023, there were 318,000 full-time employees with a foreign background working in Denmark (population 6 million). The government, under the Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration, has various programs to attract foreign workers and is always tinkering with them:
The mistranslated Pay Limit Scheme (DK) (Beløbsordningen, literally “The Amount-scheme”), which grants work permits to non-EU foreigners in jobs with salaries above a certain threshold, which was reduced last year to DKK 393,000 (USD 56,000) a year.
The Fast-Track Scheme (DK), in which designated companies can recruit foreigners with special qualifications. True to its name, it lets people start working as soon as they’ve been biometrically registered.
The so-called Positive List of some 200 job titles for both professionals and skilled workers for which there is a labor shortage.
There are several guides and services to help: Expat in Denmark, Expat.com, Work in Denmark, and New to Denmark.
You don’t happen to speak Danish? Not a problem in fields like tech, pharma, and finance. If you try, Danes will interrupt you in English and make fun of your accent, which you will never lose.
Where’s the guarantee?
Most recently, Greater Copenhagen has launched its own scheme exploiting Denmark’s happiness reputation: Life Quality Insurance (“the world’s first”):
We're so confident that you'll increase your quality of life by moving to the Greater Copenhagen Region, that we'll help you get back home if it doesn't
To qualify, sign up for free, get a full-time job contract, and relocate here by April 2025. As spokesperson Asbjørn Overgaard explains, after 12 months’ residence, if—“against all odds”—you’re unsatisfied, you’ll be reimbursed for return travel expenses, up to USD 716.
The fine print
There’s always a catch, even in uncorrupt Denmark: Copenhagen is “so confident that people will fall in love with life in GCR” that it’s not preparing for many defectors (and is skating close to clickbait after all—this is “of course—not real insurance,” a footnote adds).
Unless there’s a typo, by my count the program’s budget is so small—USD 7,158—that it can accommodate only 10 unhappy campers. Certainly an economical marketing campaign. So hurry, so you can be first in and, if necessary, first out. If you really don’t like it here, though, you might not wait 12 months to leave.
Alternatively, you could circumvent the labor market and try the method I used (unwittingly at the time): marry a Dane, same-sex spouses very welcome. Even with this tactic, though, the rules on “family reunification” have become more restrictive.
Outside DK, special for T**** haters
If all else fails and you don’t mind the Mediterranean sun, the depopulated village of Ollolai, Sardinia, is offering fixer-uppers for EUR 1 (USD 1), particularly to Americans. “Are you worned [sic] out by global politics?” asks its website. It also has free temporary housing for digital nomads and “move-in-ready” homes for up to USD 107,000.
“Of course, we can’t specifically mention the name of one US president who just got elected,” says discreet Mayor Francisco Columbo, “but we all know that he’s the one from whom many Americans want to get away from [again sic] now.”
One caution about expat life in Denmark: "The main challenge today is retaining international talent” (my emphasis), explains Mads Hougaard. In fact, around two-thirds of those who come here to work leave within five years. Not quite the same “odds” that Overgaard is thinking of. Life Quality, the sensible social infrastructure, can be measured fairly objectively, not so the unhappiness that would cause you to bail. Oh well, in five years, perhaps America will have reverted to a more compassionate conservatism under a President Vance.
Bonus links on the election
John Gray in The New Statesman
Peter Thiel talks with Bari Weiss
Eric Weinstein talks with Triggernometry
Timothy Snyder: Oligarchs’ Island (whose cast includes Thiel)