Do you all feel like you subjectively have an overall comparatively higher quality of life than Americans?
I’m asking because I saw some Australian women commenting on another post regarding Americans and it had me thinking.
I’ve never been able to visit but I have some Aussie (male) friends, who have openly laughed whenever I tell them about our quality of life here in the states.
They do share that it’s expensive to exist there, but their overall demeanor, ability to take quality time off, health care and other aspects about their life seems unreal compared to how we are subjected to live in the states. They also mention how they would never want to live here haha.
What are your thoughts and experiences? I’m so curious.
Comments
I can’t speak for Australia, but I’ve lived in Europe and most most other developed nations have paid family leave, universal healthcare, and a decent amount of vacation time, amongst other protections and rights. America isn’t exceptional at all in comparison. Quite the opposite.
I’m quite worried for women in America right now. Yes I feel like we have it far better, even before this horrible piece of shit took power. It seems like a no brainer. The list of reasons why would take too long to write.
Yeah it’s crazy to me that puppies have more rights than human babies in America. You can’t separate a puppy from its mom sooner than six weeks. Meanwhile human women have no guaranteed paid time off after having a baby that they have to pay for in the hospital?? It’s honestly a third world country as far as I’m concerned
I’ve lived in five countries as an adult and my quality of life was second worse in the US.
I lived in the US for a year for work and do feel that quality of life is better here. We have less encroachment of organised religion and political extremism on day to day life, better health care, more time off and lower crime to name a few
My family spent a month in the US on holiday in November last year and it was so expensive! I thought groceries were expensive here but supermarkets in the states were shockingly over priced for lower quality produce than you get here – apart from housing Australia is not more expensive than the US these days.
On housing, ours is more expensive but lower priced housing is better quality- the sort of housing people live in in lower socio economic areas of the US would not be allowed here
I’m an Australian woman. I honestly don’t know if it is better because I have never lived in the US.
To keep it short, I will speak to one experience for both work and healthcare.
My husband was diagnosed with leukemia whilst admitted to the hospital for gastro.
He had four months of in-patient chemo in a public hospital with one week off in between each round. He was in a private room overlooking the bay. Most of Australia lives along the coast.
At this time, my workplace put me on permanent work from home so that I did not get him sick as he had no white blood cells to fight infection. They also sent a healthy meal service for a few weeks until I got over the shock of what we were facing.
At the hospital I had to pay for television. $80 per month. Because I usually visited at night after work, I did not pay for parking. Eventually parking got spendy, but like $8 a day.
Eventually, he was going to day ward. We learned he was no longer in remission. He would not be eligible for bone marrow transplant. They put him into a clinical trial for gilteritenib – not sure if I spelled that correctly. As he was no longer admitted to the hospital, we paid for his medication out of pocket. Although we paid a fair bit of money, the government paid a lot more under the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. At day ward, they would provide healthy lunch and snacks. He had blood transfusions and bone marrow biopsies.
My workplace let me have unpaid leave from the terminal diagnosis until I was ready to return to work after he passed. We lived on his superannuation (compulsory 401k)
At every turn, both the healthcare system and my employer gave us the best chance to spend time together.
When it was time for him to pass, he was given the option to die at home or in a palliative care facility. He chose to go at home. I did the bulk of the care work. However I had access to the palliative care team. They were there within 15 mins of a phone call, even in the middle of the night. They used a driver to administer advanced pain relief. I did not have to pay for this service.
When he passed my workplace again sent a meal service and attended his funeral to support me. His heamotologist called me to check in.
I won’t lie and say it was not a shit experience. I felt supported by our health services and my employer. I was not in debt. The service provided was excellent. I hope this helps to frame a picture of what these look like.
Currently on a lighter note, my employer is forcing me to take a 4 day paid weekend in May because I banked too many RDOs. I am pretty excited because I parked it at mothers day. So I am going to celebrate me with smutty books and a fuck ton of snacks. I hope this helped, and if someone could give a contrast of what this experience would look like in the US I think the sub would have a clearer picture
Up until now, sure. But we have a Trumpy candidate in our upcoming election and if he gets in, who knows.
Australia performs worse than the US when it comes to significant gendered issues. I remember reading that domestic violence rates, the wage gap and household chore division is worse in Australia than in the US.
But Australia blows the US out of the water when it comes to support for pregnant women, childcare access, maternity leave and job protection.
Quality of life for Australia’s First Nations’ women and Native American women seem comparatively poor across all metrics.
The Australian Government offers a better lifestyle for women hands down. In their own homes though, Australian women seem to experience more violence and have to contribute more than their partners do.
Am Aussie. Visited the states for a month in Nov/Dec.
Whilst I didn’t live there, I have a good friend that does (has done most of her life and is a citizen) and we’ve had some pretty robust convos around quality of life differences.
100% I’d pick here over there any day. Absolutely no contest.
Our healthcare is mostly free but under funded – though it costs to see doctors for most people now you still would never have to pay for surgery.
Abortion rights are better, but they were actually lagging behind for ages, like my state only passed abortion on demand in the last ten years, same as most states. There are better workplace rights for now – always under attack of course. Unionization is still at a historic low and Australia has worse strike laws than some dictatorships.
Cost of living is crazy right now, a huge issue being rent. Australia is severely behind the US in terms of renters rights – renting really, really sucks here.
The Help debt for uni is better than the US, but still sucks. I think welfare is more accessible here but is still way too low. We have some of the worlds most expensive electricity prices and terrible Internet. Suburbs are likely more walkable here, public transport isn’t great but it’s okay.
Our police are increasingly militarized and they’ve been trying to pass anti protest laws for years – though probably nowhere as militarized as the US police.
Australia has blood on its hands fucking over our indigenous population, and lots of Aboriginal communities are living in third world conditions and extreme poverty. I’d love to know more about reservations in the US, indigenous people here have no treaty and don’t have the kind of say over their community that those in reservations seem to (I do understand that revenue raising is incredibly difficult for reservations because they can’t implement tax though). If you’re interested in that topic read about the massacres during colonization and the stolen generation. That’s also not to say Native Americans are treated well, the reservation system just seems very different – I’m well aware there’s still a tinned of poverty.
Alcohol and legal cigarettes are so fucking expensive here due to tax.
I think for most people in Australia (though it’s increasingly eroding) you feel like you’ll get by and there’s more support there, and better leave at work and such and no medical debt. I wouldn’t want to live in the US, but for the day to day of most people it’s probably broadly similar. It’s horrible being on the fringes anywhere, but Australia has a better safety net that’s still just not enough.
I’m Australian and have lived in both USA and Australia. Hands down, Australia wins for quality of life. Strong worker protections, high minimum wage, minimum of 4 weeks annual leave (lots of people take more though), universal health care, lack of gun violence, voting is a breeze and solid public transport (where I live) – there is no way I would return to the US.
I know plenty of people, male/female, who’d never want to live in states. I personally don’t even want to visit, especially in the current chaos.
Workplace wise, we get a minimum of 20 days paid annual leave
These are the bare minimum, state required leave rights. Larger companies often offer additional leave, e.g. IVF leave, mental health leave, menstrual leave, voluntary service leave, study leave, additional parental leave, etc.
Theres also 11.5% of your base salary paid by employer to ur retirement plan, it increases .5% every year. As of this July, this will also be paid while on parental leave.
There’s plenty more benefits, not to mention you don’t pay a penny when you give birth at the hospital.
Yes, I do.
Our healthcare is not perfect but it’s a lot better than in the US. If you lose your job, you don’t have to worry about also losing your healthcare. It doesn’t cover everything but you can take our private insurance to cover more. That private insurance is generally cheaper than what many Americans pay for their plans.
All full and part time employees are entitled to four weeks of leave a year pro rata (ie. if you work three days a week, your leave entitlement will be 12 days, which would still enable four weeks off).
We have 12 months unpaid parental leave (this can be split between father and mother, if you so choose) and the right to request another 12 months. Some employers offer more than that. I’m a public school teacher and I could get up to 14 weeks at full pay or extend it to 28 weeks at half pay. After that, I can take the rest of the year unpaid. I would also be entitled to work part time until my youngest child starts primary school. On top of all that, I can access the government parental leave. I think it’s 18 weeks and is based on the minimum wage…which is higher than the minimum wage in the US.
Not a gender thing but we also have very little gun violence here. We can send our kids to school and not worry about whether they’re going to come home. I have never had to consider whether I’ll be expect to sacrifice my own life to save my students. I can go to a movie or a shopping centre and it won’t occur to me for a second that someone might have a gun.
As a Canadian… boy would I ever not want to move to the US. Trump keeps talking about making Canada a 51st state, and like, per polling, around 90% of Canadians think “fuck no, absolutely not, ew.”
Besides the recent shit show of tour n politics, the attempts to roll back women’s human rights and the overturn of roe v. Wade? Yes we do.
American women seem to have a lot more fear day to day. Don’t get me wrong we have a domestic violence problem, stalkers, men acting like assholes in public places too. But I’m not worried to walk alone in public or to loudly call out shitty behaviour. Then again the chances that a random creep is carrying a weapon of any kind in public is pretty low. I don’t have to worry that a random stranger has a gun or knife on them.
Religion and its expectations around women’s behaviour is much less ingrained into secular society than in the US. Conversation about religion is rare amd superficial unless you’re specifically in a religions setting. For example I’ve worked with most of my colleagues for a decade and have no idea of their religious beiefs, if any, except for one. I know he was raised catholic because hes the child of Italian immigrants and he mentioned a funeral mass for his mother.
A lot of stuff like voting rights were won earlier here than in the US.
For example my state of South Australia women had the right to vote if they owned property from 1861, and universal suffrage for all women and the right to stand for parliment in 1894 (ironically the amendment allowing the right to stand for parliment was proposed by an MP who opposed women getting the vote in an attempt to make the bill too unacceptable to pass. He failed)
Anyone who had the right to vote within their state was automatically eligible to vote federally at federation in 1901; for women outside of SA and those eligible women in WA they were included by the commonwealth franchise act of 1902. (Note that while South Australia’s franchise didn’t discriminate racially, the commonwealth act did)
The idea of removing women’s right to vote isn’t something that’s debated or even mentioned.
My mother was born in the 1940s. She never needed a father or husbands permission or assistance to have her own bank accounts or credit cards.
I grew up in a developing country and moved to Australia as a teenager so I always feel grateful for what I have. I spent enough time over there to remember how good we have it over here.
I think the news/internet can get quite biased towards what we see about the USA but there’s enough negative things shown that I wouldn’t want to risk living there unless I know I’ll be part of the upper middle class or higher.
When having a baby the government gives you 24 weeks paid parental leave on top of what you get from your employers (I get 14 weeks plus can use sick leave that you get 2 weeks minimum/yr and usually accrue way more than that over the years). So taking a year off (at half pay) is pretty common. All my ex colleagues who went on parental leave have taken a year off for their first kid.
Yes, I’m 40F Australian and I despair for women in the USA. Your rights have been so badly eroded, we are looking on with horror. Things are by no means perfect here but at least we have access to healthcare and basic maternity leave and reproductive rights.
Yes. I live in Australia ans have never had the desire to visit the US. My sister in law grew up in California and moved here when she married my brother. She loves her home and family in San Diego but said she would never move back as life here is so much better.
We get subsidised child care, although I know it’s still expensive. My kids aren’t little any more so I’m not exactly sure the costs.
When I was a struggling single mother I got family payments totally around $600 a week to help me until I got a decent job.
I recently got an endometrial ablation and fallopian tube removal through the public health system that didn’t cost me a single cent.
Child support payments are made to me through the government system that forces my ex to pay so I don’t have to deal with him directly.
Cost of living is high but I’m in a full time job earning around $80k and it’s enough to live off. Not thriving but I’m surrounded by an abundance of beautiful beaches and lakes and mountains that I can visit and camp at for a small fee so I’ve got plenty to do on my weekends that don’t cost much.
There’s still a lot of issues that need addressing. Violence against women is a big problem, drugs and alcohol are a big issue, and rising homelessness in women over 50 is something that I personally worry about. Property and rent is ridiculously expensive
I’m a white Australian from immigrant parents so my experience would be very different to women of colour and our First Nations people. I can’t even begin to speak for them.
But as a whole, yes I think my quality of life is pretty good. I feel very grateful for my life often.
I would never consider a move to the U.S.
I live in Australia and think quality of life is better here.
The focus is more on working to live rather than living to work which seems to be the case in the US.
There’s obviously also the erosion of women’s rights in the US and the lack of parental leave.
Public health care is of a high standard here and private health cover isn’t crazy expensive either.
Australia also feels safer with much less gun violence. There’s also less homelessness (even though it has been on the rise in recent years, it’s nowhere near as visible as it is in the US).
I live in Canada and feel like life is significantly better here even if it’s more expensive in some ways.
Yes. We have access to abortion, contraception, medical sterilisation, hysterectomy etc all with a conversation with our primary doctor and a doctor trying to withhold those things for moral/ethical reasons would be considered outrageous.
We have paid maternity leave, significant subsidies for childcare, protections for jobs during pregnancy / mat leave.
The concern when someone has a reproductive or health issue is not “will someone treat me” or “how do I pay for this?” but “what do I need to do next to access all the services/help available to me?”
There are many legal protections here for minorities and an overall sense that health and quality of life are protected by our government and invested in.
I’m Australian and spend time in the US and work for a company with a lot of US colleagues. They work harder, get fewer holidays, have shit medical coverage and everything just seems harder. I live in one of the best cities in the world in my view (Sydney) and have a more relaxed lifestyle and a bigger safety net.
I have lived in Canada, Australia, and the USA.
I only got asked if my husband was home in the USA.
I’ve been to America a few times as an aussie.
I think if you’re heaps wealthy, like idk shaq wealthy you’d want to be in the USA and not in aus or the eu.
But if you’re a normal wage earner then yeah I’m super glad I’m not in the us. I grew up in childhood poverty but I still had dental, healthcare etc and I’m healthy even with several autoimmune disorders.
I hope the us gets through whatever the hell is happening atm.
I’m an American in New Zealand, and I have a great quality of life here. Money isn’t as good but I have tons of sick leave and separate wellness leave, cheap medical (e.g. Didn’t pay anything for my daughter’s birth or my surgery, medical and dental is free for her, etc etc), and a pleasant environment. There is stuff I don’t like, but compared to what my friends and fam in the US are going through, I can’t complain. I’m here for the lifestyle, not the money.