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February 25th, 2013

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No Oscar for ‘A Royal Affair’

Danish film director Nikolaj Arcel and his film, ‘A Royal Affair’, are coming home empty-handed from the annual Oscar awards in Hollywood last night. Arcel said that he hadn’t expected to beat the heavily-favoured ‘Amour’, the Austrian film that took home the Oscar for the year's best foreign film. While Denmark missed out on winning its second Oscar in three years, Sweden won its first statue since 1984 when Malik Bendjelloul triumphed for his documentary, 'Searching for Sugar Man'. – Ekstra Bladet

Young students forced to forgo their dream studies

A number of upper-secondary schools in Denmark attract students to their schools by offering them study trips abroad, while students who can’t afford to go are excluded. Jyllands-Posten newspaper has investigated more than 100 upper-secondary schools across the country and about 40 of them offer international studies involving study trips that cost up to 51,000 kroner per student. The trips are mandatory at a number of the schools, which is against the rules, according to the Ministry for Children and Education. – Jyllands-Posten

Financial crisis has resulted in poorer elderly

The financial crisis means that some Danes are going to have a lot less money when they retire than others. Since the crisis took hold in 2008, pension savings have increased so differently from one another that the best investments have increased more than eight times more than the worst and, as a result, some Danes will receive much less from their pensions. It looks particularly dire for younger customers in Danica Pension, who have seen yields of 4.8 percent since 2008, while PensionDanmark yields have been up to 36.5 percent. Politiken reported that most members of a pension fund are unaware of the significant differences between the various funds. – Politiken

No social security for younger generation

The government wants to prohibit people under the age of 30 from drawing the social security benefit kontanthjælp. As part of the government's kontanthjælp reform, which will be revealed later today, those aged 25-29 will join 18 to 25-year-olds on so-called 'youth benefits' rather than being eligible for kontanthjælp. The reform will target this age group with an increased effort to place them in education or a job and will open them up for receiving benefit amounts that are comparable to the student grant system, SU. The kontanthjælp reform is expected to better equip the nearly 50,000 Danes under 30 currently on social security for future employment. The government estimated that about one third of the unskilled kontanthjælp recipients under 30 are candidates to receive an education. The Copenhagen Post will have more on kontanthjælp reform when the details are released later today. – Berlingske