At the end of each year, we can study and comment on the work of the British Royal Family. The UFO No More team decided to look at the work of the Scandinavian royal families which is something that is not always done.
Before going into the numbers, a little disclaimer. These numbers represent the days worked by each member of the royal families based on their official calendar. Of course, there are meetings, “office work” to prepare each event that we don’t know about, so they are all working more than these numbers show, but they still are a good overview.
It was decided to count the days worked rather than the numbers of events because it was easier but also clearer. Naturally, they sometimes attend several events a day.
Let’s start with the numbers of the Danish Royal Family. Prince Henrik was in semi-retirement from January to the summer as he was still attending essential events and events related to his patronages. However, he is no longer working since the announcement of his dementia by the Court this summer. It is also important to note that Princess Benedikte understandably cancelled several events after the death of her husband Prince Richard in March.
It appears that despite the growing rumours of abdication, Queen Margrethe worked more days in 2017 than in 2016 while Crown Prince Frederik worked fewer days. We do need to keep in mind, once again, that these numbers are based on the Court’s official calendar, so it does not take into account the behind-the-scenes work. It is also important to note that both Prince Joachim and Princess Marie of Denmark have a day job – he works with the Armed Forces, and she works with the Danish Emergency Management Agency. They don’t receive any salary for their work. The Danish Royal Family worked 250 days in 2017 with Queen Margrethe working the most.
As to the Swedish Royal Family’s numbers, King Carl XVI Gustaf worked the most, 156 days out of the 205 days worked by the family in 2017. Princess Sofia gave birth to Prince Gabriel on 31 August and has been on maternity leave since then, even though she still attends some events, which explains her low numbers. Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel’s low numbers in January and February are explained by the fact that they took two months off to spend time with their family. Princess Madeleine has a part-time job with the World Childhood Foundation (for which she doesn’t receive a salary) and lives in London with her husband, Chris O’Neill.
Now onto the Norwegian Royal Family’s numbers. It is important to note that King Harald, Queen Sonja and Crown Princess Mette-Marit had to cancel events because of illness during the year which lowers their numbers. The whole family went to South Africa in February to celebrate the 80th birthdays of King Harald and Queen Sonja which explains the lower numbers of this month. In green are the members who worked the most days each month. Based on the calendar, the Norwegian Royal Family worked 202 days in 2017 which is the least of the three Scandinavian royal families. But they have less full-time working members as both Princess Märtha Louise and Princess Astrid only attend the family events and events related to their foundations or patronages.
While counting the number of days worked by the Norwegian Royal Family, I noticed something that I thought was important to note. Contrary to the Danish and Swedish royal families, the Norwegian Royal Family hosts a lot of audiences (sometimes up to five a day for King Harald) and I thought it was important to note that even though Crown Prince Haakon appears to have worked more days than King Harald, King Harald has had more events than Crown Prince Haakon because of the numbers of audiences he hosted. Sometimes Queen Sonja or Crown Prince Haakon attends those audiences, too. Below are the numbers of audiences, government meetings and events related to their foundations attended by King Harald, Crown Prince Haakon, Queen Sonja and Crown Princess Mette-Marit.
As stated multiple times, these numbers are only based on the official calendars and represent days worked not events attended. Thus, these numbers are an overview of the work of the royal families, but it is essential to acknowledge that they work more than these numbers show.
The graphs and data belong to Sarah Williams (The Royals and I/ UFO No More) and Heaven LeeMiller (Princess Marie’s Closet/UFO No More) who have graciously allowed us to use them. If you wish to use them, please do it with credit and a link to the original post.
If we look at the royal calendar. The numbers are different than this statistic shows.