What do you define as the "standard of living"?

[NastyWoman]

Trying to catch up on my reading here a comment made by Tskeeter in the international travel thread caught my eye.  TS compared the standard of living in Europe with that in the US and mentioned that it is higher in the US compared to even other first world countries. But what exactly is being compared here? Wealth as represented by the ability to buy things? Larger homes? More expensive cars? Healthcare access? Does time to spend with your loved ones figure into the equation? And is a feeling of happiness important? 

I never thought about comparing the SoL between similarly blessed societies and now that I am trying to I don't quite know how to do it but personally I think that TS conclusion is based on insufficient data (and please forgive me for dragging you into one of my threads TS, this is not against you in any way, shape, or form)

discuss

[violagirl]

Everything is so new in North America. I get a kick out of the British HGTV shows or house hunter shows where they talk about updated kitchens and looking at it it you think really??!!! THAT is updated? Maybe it was updated in 1926. With weird bathrooms off the kitchen and inconvenient laundry. I think we have access to more conveniences in a way here. Also much larger houses and land.

I believe meat is also cheaper in North America so we eat more. 

On the other hand, I totally loved the train system in Europe. That would be so good to have here in North America. But I'm not sure it would be cost effective because of the population vs distance problem. I think in a sense we are used to more luxury here. The convenience of our own cars, our own single family homes, our own large piece of land...so  maybe our standards as far as what we think is normal is higher in a sense because we are used to Newer things. 

Does that equate to a higher quality of life? Not sure. 

[busymom]

I remember a college prof of mine that was born & raised in India. When he had a son of his own, he traveled to India with his son to show him what poverty REALLY looks like. People were left to die in the street. As distasteful as we may find poverty in our country, it really is much worse in other places.

Even though our house might be considered bigger than some folks, I'm sure some would look down on it, because we've never put in granite counter tops, ceramic tile, nor did we ever bother to install a 2nd bathroom (although, we do have the rough-in plumbing in the basement). With just the 2 kids, we've managed just fine with what we have. Maybe if you're satisfied with what you've got, that might be considered a good standard of living...

[tloonya]

As I had said before there is poor and there is 'American poor'...so do not even try to compare and understand how others living.

I had visited my childhood friend in Germany about 10 years ago. By the time of our visit they were living in a small apartment using towels they brought from Russia and having not a remote possibility to buy an apartment because for $150K apt they would have to put 30% or more down payment and that was not the money they were making.
They awed an old car that they had to pay for, insured it and pay some bogus tax on 'privilege of having it'...
However when they were talking about their lives we felt like they are so blessed!
She worked until 1pm, picking up her son from school, taking him to a basketball or soccer and felt absolutely unable to move.
With 2 days off in a week and 1 child to take to a games we felt odd that she was even tired.
They could take off and go to Prague for a weekend, Paris or Amsterdam. They did not splurged and were very frugal packing sandwiches.
However we felt it was great that they can do this.

When visited us here they were stunned by the grandness of the land. And price of our food and clothes and goods in general.
But when I told them that my next door neighbor is taking 3 kids to the track and baseball and football and they way we have OUR life
structured and mortgaged etc. - they were in deep thinking...I could see that every day.

We thought they had more time to do things with families. They thought we have more financial opportunities. So each wanted and envied what we didn't have. You know - curly hair gets straightened when straight hair got permed...same shit.

So talking about them having 4 weeks of vacation - when I had mentioned my friend said but you have days off during the year we don't have.
They only have Easter off. So we have about 15 of those spread out?

Do not compare and not comparable you will be! There is no answer to this question.

P.S. Bottom line. After they came back from USA they FOUND an appat and GOT it mortgaged and we yet to see it.

[souldoubt]

Jun 22, 2014 20:26:19 GMT -5 violagirl said:

Everything is so new in North America. I get a kick out of the British HGTV shows or house hunter shows where they talk about updated kitchens and looking at it it you think really??!!! THAT is updated? Maybe it was updated in 1926. With weird bathrooms off the kitchen and inconvenient laundry. I think we have access to more conveniences in a way here. Also much larger houses and land.

What very well may be new or updated in the UK isn't the same as what people consider as being new or updated in the US due to differing styles.  Same thing with room size as a lot of people on House Hunters International that go overseas are always disappointed in the room sizes and the sizes of the apartments or houses in general. Meanwhile the realtor is telling them it's got nice sized rooms.  

[truthbound]

Jun 22, 2014 13:22:49 GMT -5 @tbird said:

when I visited the UK frequently back in the 80's, appliances were a big difference. My XHs family had a lovely home close to the heart of London. But - the didn't have hot running water. Put an electric kettle on to wash the dishes.....there was a boiler over the tub you turned on 20 minutes before you wanted a bath.

obvious, such a thing as a dishwasher was out of the thought process.

they had tiny fridges and stoves. in home washer/dryers weren't common.

Car ownership was much less common.

It hasn't changed much.

[weltschmerz]

Jun 22, 2014 13:00:39 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

Trying to catch up on my reading here a comment made by Tskeeter in the international travel thread caught my eye.  TS compared the standard of living in Europe with that in the US and mentioned that it is higher in the US compared to even other first world countries. But what exactly is being compared here? Wealth as represented by the ability to buy things? Larger homes? More expensive cars? Healthcare access? Does time to spend with your loved ones figure into the equation? And is a feeling of happiness important? 

I never thought about comparing the SoL between similarly blessed societies and now that I am trying to I don't quite know how to do it but personally I think that TS conclusion is based on insufficient data (and please forgive me for dragging you into one of my threads TS, this is not against you in any way, shape, or form)

discuss

Good question.

Most European countries have universal healthcare, generous paid maternity leaves, much longer vacations, cheaper education, and much bigger safety nets.

Europeans tend to work to live, while Americans tend to live to work, so they can afford to drive their oil rigs on wheels and have bigger homes.

[tskeeter]

In my mind, I differentiate between standard of living and quality of life.  The reason I do this is that people can improve their standard of living by reducing their quality of life, or visa-versa. 

In standard of living, I consider the relationship between compensation and the cost of the things we purchase.  Basically financial attributes.  I first started to evaluate relative standard of living when I was looking at employment postings and real estate for sale postings in the windows of businesses while visiting Ireland.  My observation was that jobs in Ireland didn't pay as much as similar jobs in the US and that the cost of homes was quite a bit higher on a cost per square foot basis.  After my initial comparison, I expanded what I was observing to include things such as the cost of individual grocery items, the cost of restaurant meals, the cost of cars, the cost of fuel for cars, etc.  I also considered things like the number of cars a family typically owns (in Ireland, at that time, one car families were much more common than multi car families), the size of houses, the numbers of TV's and personal computers, as well as anything else I could observe as I traveled and visited the homes of relatives and B&B proprietors.

When looking at quality of life, I have considered how many hours people work per day, per week, etc.  Whether people in non-service industries work weekends on a regular basis.  How much time they spend commuting to work.  How much time off from work people get in the form of holidays or vacation time.  Lifestyle behaviors can also be a factor in evaluating quality of life.  One of the things that struck me while driving around in rural France was how people approached lunch time.  I had stopped at a modest wayside rest area along a small two lane road.  Simply a gravel pull off with a half dozen picnic tables on the edge of a recently plowed field.  As I sat and looked at the scenery, cars full of people began to pull in for lunch and to take a break from their travels.  No fast food hamburgers for these folks.  Out of trunks and back seats came hampers and coolers.  Table cloths, cheeses, sausages, fruit, bread, wine, bottles of water, and sometimes real dishes, glassware, and silverware appeared on the picnic tables.  I stayed long enough to get the impression that this was going to be a leisurely lunch, not a rushed affair followed by piling back into the car and high tailing it for the next stop.  I though this approach to a traveling lunch was several quality of life points higher than the drive through window, eat on the road traveling lunch that I typically would have.

Other quality of life considerations might include things like the age at which residents qualify for the local version of SS, government mandated vacation time, maternity leave, and the like.

Side note:  After our trip to France, DW and I began to shift our standard of living/quality of life relationship.  Over the next couple of years we quit our 70- 80 hour a week jobs, moved to an area where homes were less expensive, took less demanding jobs, reduced our work week to much closer to 40 hours, and reduced our income.  We exchanged seeing the sun come up at work on Saturday morning for sipping coffee at the kitchen table and looking at the snow on the mountains between reading sections of the newspaper.  We exchanged racing home to get the lawn mowed before the sun went down for pot luck dinners with the neighbors.  And we exchanged grabbing a late dinner at Olive Garden for actually cooking.  Who'd a thunk that simply seeing how other people live and what they value would be all it takes to drive some people to change their lives?       

[Phoenix84]

Quality of life is pretty subjective.  But it's easy to see that here in the U.S we have a lot of land compared to most of Europe, so it's easier to have larger homes with more land and have everything "spread out" more.

[kittensaver]

Jun 25, 2014 13:22:25 GMT -5 Phoenix84 said:

Quality of life is pretty subjective.  But it's easy to see that here in the U.S we have a lot of land compared to most of Europe, so it's easier to have larger homes with more land and have everything "spread out" more.

And that is - as tskeeter so aptly pointed out - only relevant if one equates land, houses and other material goods with Quality of Life. Other people have other standards for quality living . Just sayin' . . .

[tskeeter]

Jun 22, 2014 13:00:39 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

Trying to catch up on my reading here a comment made by Tskeeter in the international travel thread caught my eye.  TS compared the standard of living in Europe with that in the US and mentioned that it is higher in the US compared to even other first world countries. But what exactly is being compared here? Wealth as represented by the ability to buy things? Larger homes? More expensive cars? Healthcare access? Does time to spend with your loved ones figure into the equation? And is a feeling of happiness important? 

I never thought about comparing the SoL between similarly blessed societies and now that I am trying to I don't quite know how to do it but personally I think that TS conclusion is based on insufficient data (and please forgive me for dragging you into one of my threads TS, this is not against you in any way, shape, or form)

discuss

joss, absolutely right about limited data.  Observations of one person, in limited locations, using a definition of standard of living unique to the observer's interpretation, all of which has no empirical basis.

[Baby Fawkes]

Jun 25, 2014 13:49:39 GMT -5 tskeeter said:

Jun 22, 2014 13:00:39 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

Trying to catch up on my reading here a comment made by Tskeeter in the international travel thread caught my eye.  TS compared the standard of living in Europe with that in the US and mentioned that it is higher in the US compared to even other first world countries. But what exactly is being compared here? Wealth as represented by the ability to buy things? Larger homes? More expensive cars? Healthcare access? Does time to spend with your loved ones figure into the equation? And is a feeling of happiness important? 

I never thought about comparing the SoL between similarly blessed societies and now that I am trying to I don't quite know how to do it but personally I think that TS conclusion is based on insufficient data (and please forgive me for dragging you into one of my threads TS, this is not against you in any way, shape, or form)

discuss

joss, absolutely right about limited data.  Observations of one person, in limited locations, using a definition of standard of living unique to the observer's interpretation, all of which has no empirical basis.

I have to agree with this as well. I think it's definitely dependent upon what you really value. Living over here I have my wifes side of the value that have always lived in the US and they tend to put more value on amount of land and size of the house, but they never have any desire to travel outside of the US. To them it's all about what you have available at home and I can respect that. Looking at my side of the family that are all in the UK, they have smaller houses and either less or not as fancy material possessions, but they get 4 or 5 weeks vacation from work and have the ability to get relatively cheaper flights to different European countries to see more of the world and culture. They can take 2-3 trips a year for a week at a time due to more vacation and less money spent on their house/land as a trade-off/balance.

I don't think either is necessarily better. The only problem is if you really crave for one way of life but are stuck in the other. In that case you may very much view the grass as greener on the other side.

[Phoenix84]

Jun 25, 2014 13:38:12 GMT -5 kittensaver said:

Jun 25, 2014 13:22:25 GMT -5 Phoenix84 said:

Quality of life is pretty subjective.  But it's easy to see that here in the U.S we have a lot of land compared to most of Europe, so it's easier to have larger homes with more land and have everything "spread out" more.

And that is - as tskeeter so aptly pointed out - only relevant if one equates land, houses and other material goods with Quality of Life. Other people have other standards for quality living . Just sayin' . . .

True, as I said, it's pretty subjective.  What may be a good quality of life for one person may not be for another.  Some people value money, others time, others their homes, others travel ect.  There's really no "best" answer.

Though, I wonder, does the availability of land and houses mean people will value those things more highly?  In other words, because we have more land and bigger houses here in North America vs. most of Europe, does that mean that Americans are more likely to value their homes than Europeans?