I’ve lived in Finland [5.5 years) and Norway (almost 3 years and counting…).

I would never move back to Finland, even though I have many friends there and have visited at least once a year since moving away 15 years ago.

For me, the culture is too focused on achieving its desired outcomes (largely ones that I agree with) through bureaucratic policy making. What this means is that they end up being quite officious and inflexible in various everyday situations. This inflexibility and handling everything through (good) policy rather than (good) people often makes things run reasonably well, but can be dehumanizing if you’re not educated into the system from an early age.

It’s also by far the most (culturally) pietistic country of the Nordics and so embraces the lower salaries and “duller” values associated with Protestant pietism (again not in a religious sense) to a greater extent than others. So, unless you share the Finnish values and way of achieving those values from the beginning, I find it a very hard place to live.

Norway has quickly become one of my favorite places to live out of all (see flair for a short biography). I find the culture much more flexible than Finland (and famously more flexible than Sweden). The Norwegians basically share the cultural values of Finland, but don’t primarily achieve them through bureaucracy. Things are done on a more personal level. I also find the culture and especially the nature itself to be more exciting. The population diversity (which is actually rather high in all the Nordic countries now! see OECD statistics on first and second generation immigration) has an impact on Norway and Norwegians in a way that I do not see in other places. The natural diversity is just in another stratosphere than Sweden, Finland, or Denmark. All three of those are essentially boring natures unless you’re going far north or very far outside of cities. In Norway all the big cities have access to huge amounts of stunning nature within he city and accessible by public transit. Plus, the work-life balance is like night and day compared to Finland (and also Germany since someone unthread mentioned it). Your job is just something you do. It is not part of your identity in any very strong way. Nobody questions the value of your personal/family time.

From visiting and speaking with Danish colleagues, I think I could live in Denmark, though there I’d be concentrated on living an urban life. Danes seem fun-loving like the Norwegians (maybe even more), but a bit more work-hard, play-hard and sticklers for the rules than the Norwegians. I would not say the same about Sweden, which to me seems like a slightly milder form of Finland (though with a lot more attention to diversity).