Denmark and its Scandinavian neighbours often appear at the top of many of the world’s “best of” lists, from happiest and least corrupt to best place to raise a family.

The Danish way of parenting has inspired a slew of manuals that have become bestsellers. To parents elsewhere, the picture presented is a near utopia of supportive government policies and effortless rearing of happy babies.

But how different is parenting in Denmark really from other countries, like the UK?

I am a professor of psychological science at Aarhus University in Denmark. My research focuses on mental health and parenting in the early years. Here’s what the evidence shows.

Health Gap / Sundhedskløften is a collaborative series from The Conversation UK and Denmark’s Videnskab.dk exploring what the two countries can learn from each other when it comes to health and wellbeing.

From cycling and alcohol to inequality, healthcare and everyday habits, the series looks beyond hospitals and medical treatment to explore how culture, politics and society shape the way people live – and how healthy they are.

Denmark and the UK differ on leave for new parents in two striking ways: how much compensation is provided and how leave can be shared between parents.

Denmark provides more generous leave compensation than the UK and assigns equal amounts of leave to each parent that cannot be transferred.

In 2022, Denmark........

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