How is life in the US different from life in Europe or other parts of the world?

35 comments

  2. I’ve never lived in Europe or other parts of the world, so I have no idea.

    Maybe an expats or immigration sub would be better to ask, though those subs tend to be filled with people with very negative feelings about the US.

  3. Kind of a broad question.

    We’re all humans who seek fulfillment, safety and happiness. In practice our differences are far more minute than we make them out to be.

    The lifestyles of Americans vary wildly from one another to the point where your lifestyle as a foreigner may be closer to my fellow American than my own.

    Any specifics you want to ask?

  4. Originally German, lived in London for 10 years before then settling down at the west coast of the US. In general I have the experience that people here like to enjoy themselves more and take more time for family and friends. Especially Germany is notoriously tight and old-fashioned, you would never find someone here to take on a second mortgage to buy a boat/ lake house/ muscle car etc. It is true in the US you have less holiday but I fell you enjoy yourself more.

  5. r/expats or similar sub would probably net better results, since the entire audience has lived in more than one country

  6. There is no countrywide law regarding paid parental leave. Some dads use their vacation days and others don’t take off at all when their own child is born. Some women have to return to work after just two or four weeks because they need to make money.

  7. TL:DR

    Europe: Am I allowed to do this?

    USA: Is anyone going to stop me from doing this?

  8. Having lived abroad for awhile, in a country in Europe, life isn’t so different. It’s just another western country with western values and ideals. Travel a bit and you’d find that humans aren’t so different no matter where you are. Most of us all just want the same out of life.

  9. Ah I see you’re Lithuanian! My wife immigrated from Klaipėda.

    She said there’s more stuff to do here for fun.

  10. I feel, when comparing democratic countries with advanced economies, individual and regional variations in lifestyle outweighs national differences, and make this question difficult to answer. From my limited personal experience, the lifestyle of a New Yorker is going to be more similar to that of Londoner than that of a Texan.

  11. My TL;DR for differences in marketing choices, service, personal expectations, and lots of little knock-on effects, both positive and negative:

    In America, the customer is always right.

    In Germany, the expert is always right.

  12. Road trip in Europe: “Cool place. Where do we park?”

    Road trip in the US: “we’ve been driving past this same corn field for 13 hours”

    It’s Friday night and you remembered your wife’s birthday is tomorrow in Europe: store opens Monday after you go to work.

    It’s Friday night and you remembered your wife’s birthday is tomorrow in the US: 24/7 choices galore

  13. My typical day in the Summer.

    Get up. Have a quick swim in the pool. Drink some coffee on the patio while I read email. Shower. Get ready for work, which is a 20 foot walk. Take calls throughout the day. Work through lunch. Work until after 6. GF comes over. Throw some food on the grill. Relax. Hip back online and do a bit more work at night.

    I know many of my European friends live in much smaller confines. No pools. No patios and grilling.

    We certainly work more hours than many places. Work permeates our lives.

    And we have more conveniences.

    But otherwise, I could have this same lifestyle in Australia, Italy, or India.

  14. a friend in America had leukemia and he had to worry about raising money for treatment, so his friends had to start a go fund me page, my mom had leukemia in Germany and all she had to worry about is getting better,

  15. It’s not that different on a human level.

    Life tends to be much more stressful in the US than most European countries, at least in my experience. I feel Americans have vastly different priorities and end up shooting themselves in the foot because of it, to the point that even explaining this to them comes back with a 404 error.

  16. We have more space.

    My condo is considered spacious by Italian standards. I really can’t complain; the neighborhood is nice and it’s all very lovely, and I feel fortunate for what we have. However, every shithole apartment I ever had back in America, no matter how sketchy the neighborhood, felt cavernous by comparison. (To be sure, I never lived anywhere east of Las Vegas.)

    Or just the way everything’s laid out. We chose to have sprawl, but the fact is, we chose to do so because we actually *could.*

    My wife: “It’s like you have more space than you know what to do with.”

    And then nature is just so much more vast. Ever flown over Germany and looked out the window? Italy ain’t far off, although they’re more mountainous, which helps somewhat. To my wild western eyes, it’s just all so terribly crowded. We have *so* much wilderness. Maybe only the Nordic countries (not you, Denmark!) and Russia know the feeling.

    Edit: ah geez, sorry for contributing to the circle jerk. I was going through this thread and thinking “oh great, here we go.” But then I looked down, and…

  17. Usa: everything you need costs a lot, and they manage to monetize everything. Our child cost about $15,000 just getting here (born), and that’s with insurance. No major complications.

    Daycare, not the most expensive by far in the area, is $2,000 a month.

    There’s a lot of needed jobs- like retail, service industry, cosmetics, that people don’t consider a “career” so they pay shit.

    Access to national parks though is fucking fantastic. You’re much more likely to invest a lot of money in making your home somewhere you spend most of your time, hence you see so many “man caves” and the such.

    The scales are tipped heavily in favor of the employer, not the employee, so if you have a problem with your boss you’re probably fucked.

    If I were to ever move it wouldn’t be to another city in the USA, I feel I’m in a magical spot surrounded by insanity, suburban sprawl, and overall depressing communities with little to offer over corporate chain restaurants.

  18. Towns and cities are more walkable here in Italy. But I see at least here in northern Italy, the Italians love their cars. On some busy streets there is just so many cars and people parking where they shouldn’t.

  19. I can’t tell but I have family (France) that was in the US during almost 5 years. Life seems to be more expensive than Europe. They tell me they spent 20x more times for doctors and the most trivial things cost a thing.

  20. There’s a lot more car dependency in the US. I.e. it’s more common to need a car to do any activity that involves leaving the house than not.

  22. Lots of driving. A very large amount of driving. Not because of the lack of public transport, it’s the fact that there is so. much. fucking. LAND. I drive 15,000 miles a year

  23. Amazing diversity of food, I’m not just talking fast food as some Europeans seem to think it’s the only thing we eat. But like small outta the way family restaurants for anything from Thai to Serbian, Mexican to a place that serves only fancy types of mac n cheese we have a wide selection of food from many parts of the world while the average European doesn’t even own Tortillas or has eaten good Burgers.

  24. Only real thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of other nations are really homogeneous in culture. Even if they think they have diversity of culture it has nothing on the diversity of culture in the US. In a lot of ways homogeny is much less challenging than a diverse culture because people agree on so many things already and the differences are much higher level than foundational differences.

  25. In America, you can literally do whatever you want, be whoever you want no matter where you come from …in many parts of the EU depends where you came from, you family etc…

  26. We sacrifice way too much to be the world’s police but it’s clear someone has to do it, guess it has to be us.

    I do get annoyed when enlightened Europeans criticize our way of life. We have subsidized most of the worlds protection for the past 7 decades at great cost.

    You’re welcome.

  27. Americans are known for working longer hours, but as someone who used to work with colleagues from UK, France , and Spain, I saw many of them working just as long if not more than we did. “Americans get off at 5 you won’t reach them after that time.” Was a common trope.

  28. If you want European level social welfare you have to actually work for the government. If you can land a government job you’re pretty set for a nice middle class life AND retirement. Lots of time off with no questions asked, access to free in house mental healthcare, inexpensive health insurance, guaranteed pension AND also deferred compensation (basically investment in the stock market that’s tax free). Paternity leave and maternity leave. “Compensation time” for some, which means every hour of overtime you work, you can bank and take off later. And you get the benefits of how relatively inexpensive things are in the US.

  29. Compared to Europe you tend to work more, you’re probably more in debt and you got less rights like paid holidays, paid maternity leave, etc. You may earn a bit more but you probably got less available cash because you spend way more in stuff like Healthcare. It doesn’t compare nicely at all imo.

  31. Driving. In other parts of the world you will generally live close to a city or at least within the reach of public transit. You will also generally have things walkable from your house/apartment. In the US (and Canada as well, perhaps even Australia) you will generally live in suburbs about 30-80km away from the city and things will be spread out, you will need to drive to achieve most of your daily tasks. Driving is often as important as walking here

  32. Everyone is coming at this from a rules perspective, but as far as daily life, the biggest difference is the car. Many American families have 2 or more vehicles, sometimes a vehicle per person, mostly out of necessity. There are positives and negatives to this,l set up, but it is vastly different from daily life in Europe and Asia.

  33. Never been to Europe, but had family that was born there and moved here. Things that they always complained about include:

    Car dependency

    Gun Culture

    Big portions

    Tipping Culture

    Ethnic Diversity*

    ​

    *My grandmother grew up in 1930’s Germany

  35. In the US, everyone drives everywhere. In London and Paris, everyone walked, biked, rode scooters.

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