Now tell me how can I do that all with working like donkeys?
Human side of life is much more than living in a Software bubble.
EDIT: corrected some typos.
But remember that especially in the scandinavian welfare states, your consumption isn't just your salary, it's a wide range of often rather expensive public services.
As is mentioned in the article, this has a flavour of political posturing, and it's not given that it will treated perfectly scientifically. But, of course, if it turns out that the employees are actually more efficient at the same cost, you can have your cake and eat it too.
It seems that outsiders (I am guessing you are, by the way you frame it) are eager to remind us that we have large public sectors, or whatever you want to call it. It feels a bit rude to me; as if you know better than us how our societies/governments are structured.
We do know that money doesn't grow on trees. We do know that "free" doesn't mean "from out of nowhere", handed to us by our benevolent, watchful, government.
Does it really need to be pointed out that if you work less (absolutely, not just measured by hours), you will be less productive? Please. Give us some credit.
It can be easy to take for granted your current situation, and become oblivious to it. So it often takes an outsider to remind the insiders of their situation. It is no different from how the lack of universal health insurance in the US may not be apparent to the ~85% of Americans who do have health insurance.
You get 480 days paid vacation per child (shared between husband and wife). It is very common in every office (regardless of occupation, work type) that people go to 6-8 months vacation for full time. Lot of persons take half day off for extended period of time.