Academics in Norway don't have it much better. University contracts are all time limited which makes getting a mortgage very difficult and rental accommodation is either ridiculously expensive or would be condemned in a real country. Norway's one of those places where if you fit into the system, life is good. But if you don't, it's really hard.

Academics have a really hard time with it because society is designed around 2 parent families where both parent works a normal job with normal hours. If you have kids and your experiment needs to run until 17:00, you're going to have to find someone to finish it for you because daycare, while affordable and means tested, closes at 16:30. If you need to rent, expect to pay about half your income for a shitty converted storage cellar in someone's house. If you go on parental leave and it ends after your standard 2 year academic contract is up, you won't have a job to go back to (the universities offer 2 year contracts because by Norwegian law anyone working the same job for 3 years has to be given a permanent contract so they rehire their staff every 2 years).