QUOTE : I call up the happiness economist Christian Bjørnskov who I spoke to at the start of my adventure to ask for his perspective. He confirms that this level of trust is key to keeping Danes so damned happy. As he told me before I started my quest, ‘life is so much easier when you can trust people’, and this is regardless of whether you’re actually about to get your bank account wiped or have your house burgled. ‘So if I feel safe and trust the people around me, I’m less likely to feel stressed or anxious. I have the headspace to be happy?’ ‘Exactly,’ he tells me. ‘And countries with a major welfare state tend to be high-trust countries, though the high levels of trust in Denmark aren’t necessarily caused by the welfare state.