Anu Partanen

Originally from Finland and now based in the United States, Anu Partanen is an expert on the ways parental leaves, education, healthcare, and other social policies affect everyday lives. Over the course of her two-decade career as a journalist she has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Fortune, and covered politics, technology, culture, and the arts.

Moving to America from Finland in 2008, Partanen found that navigating the basics of everyday life in the U.S.- from buying a cell phone and filing taxes to education and childcare- was much more complicated and stressful than anything she encountered in her homeland. At first, she attributed her crippling anxiety to the difficult of adapting to a freewheeling new culture. But as she got to know Americans better, she discovered they shared her deep apprehension. But as she got to know Americans better, she discovered they shared her deep apprehension. To understand why life is so different in the U.S. and Finland, Partanen began to look closely at both. In "The Nordic Theory of Everything," Partanen compares and contrasts life in the US with life in the Nordic region, focusing on four key relationships- parents and children, men and women, employees and employers, and government and citizens.