Ah, lies, damn lies, and statistics.<p>It's nice and easy to compare the official numbers and compile lists and rankings, but it's very easy to be clouded by your own preconceptions and belive that the numbers tell the whole story. Not so.<p>For example, Sweden's weakest category was "Social Capital".<p>> The marriage rate is the 77th lowest, globally<p>I was fixing up my profile at LinkedIn today, and under my personal status I could choose between "single" or "married". I got slightly annoyed, because I am neither. I'm "cohabitating" or whatever the awkward English term for it is. Over here, such an arrangement is very common, and even offers some legal protection. There are many couples who live together, raise children, and never marry. There's no difference between these and married couples, except that the latter group shows up in global statistics and the former group show up as singles, even though it's not an accurate view.<p>> while rates of religious attendance are seventh lowest among all countries, suggesting a limited access to familial and religious support networks.<p>The average Swede would consider this being seventh from the top, not seventh from the bottom. There's also no lack of access to religious support, it's that people don't <i>want</i> it.<p>The numbers will tell you that a majority of Swedes are christians, because the number you get is the number of members of various churches, but until recently, membership in the state church was automatic, and a lot of people get married in a church or baptize their children in a church, despite being atheist or agnostic or apathetic to the whole thing.<p>So the official numbers say we are a christian nation where noone goes to church regularly. The truth is that we are a secular nation that uses churches for traditions.