<story><title>The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess</title><url>http://www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/the-gig-economy-celebrates-working-yourself-to-death</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>J-dawg</author><text>Not to disagree with the parent comment (because overall I prefer the European way) but we &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; have it worse in some ways.&lt;p&gt;Salaries for professionals are markedly lower, we live in much smaller houses etc. I get the feeling that when you&amp;#x27;re winning at life in America, you&amp;#x27;re &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; winning. But when you&amp;#x27;re losing you&amp;#x27;re really losing. In Europe the ups and downs of life are more smoothed out.</text></item><item><author>rmc</author><text>And many of them think that people in Europe have it worse. That the economy would just collapse into African-levels of poverty if there was mandatory paid holidays.&lt;p&gt;This is a danger of American TV shows and movie studios remaking shows for the American audiences. They don&amp;#x27;t get to see that Europe is mostly a developed place.</text></item><item><author>seanhandley</author><text>As a European (used to free healthcare, statutory maternity leave, and 25 days paid leave per year) it shocked me on first visiting America how third-world it actually feels regarding what people consider a &amp;quot;normal&amp;quot; work&amp;#x2F;life balance.&lt;p&gt;People work incredibly hard, long hours and often with very little to show for it. It&amp;#x27;s surreal.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>alkonaut</author><text>&amp;gt; Salaries for professionals are markedly lower, we live in much smaller houses etc.&lt;p&gt;This is an age old debate, and it&amp;#x27;s very hard to compare one vast continent to another. Regional differences between US cities and European cities are at least as large or larger than the difference between the avereages of US and European salaries&amp;#x2F;living standards etc.  The difference between central manhattan and rural Apalachia is just like the difference between the fancy parts of Stockholm and rural eastern Europe. There is just no comparison in Salaries, Life expectancy etc.&lt;p&gt;When it comes to those of us that are &amp;quot;winning&amp;quot;, the difference is there, especially for some professions like doctors who can basically make a killing in the US but not in Europe. That is probably to do with that it&amp;#x27;s an economic risk&amp;#x2F;investment to get the MD in the US, whereas in Europe it&amp;#x27;s normally free. When you are a finished doctor you aren&amp;#x27;t entitled to a fancy car - we just paid your MD so you better get to work and be thankful ;)&lt;p&gt;To make a fair comparison between me (a software dev) and a comparable person in the US (in a similar metro area of ~1M people) you&amp;#x27;d have to make a pretty tricky calculation involving costs of healthcare, childcare, money saved for retirement, pensions etc.  On the bottom line I think the US person would make a bit more money, but on the other hand would have a worse work&amp;#x2F;life balance.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess</title><url>http://www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/the-gig-economy-celebrates-working-yourself-to-death</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>J-dawg</author><text>Not to disagree with the parent comment (because overall I prefer the European way) but we &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; have it worse in some ways.&lt;p&gt;Salaries for professionals are markedly lower, we live in much smaller houses etc. I get the feeling that when you&amp;#x27;re winning at life in America, you&amp;#x27;re &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; winning. But when you&amp;#x27;re losing you&amp;#x27;re really losing. In Europe the ups and downs of life are more smoothed out.</text></item><item><author>rmc</author><text>And many of them think that people in Europe have it worse. That the economy would just collapse into African-levels of poverty if there was mandatory paid holidays.&lt;p&gt;This is a danger of American TV shows and movie studios remaking shows for the American audiences. They don&amp;#x27;t get to see that Europe is mostly a developed place.</text></item><item><author>seanhandley</author><text>As a European (used to free healthcare, statutory maternity leave, and 25 days paid leave per year) it shocked me on first visiting America how third-world it actually feels regarding what people consider a &amp;quot;normal&amp;quot; work&amp;#x2F;life balance.&lt;p&gt;People work incredibly hard, long hours and often with very little to show for it. It&amp;#x27;s surreal.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>onion2k</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Salaries for professionals are markedly lower, we live in much smaller houses etc. I get the feeling that when you&amp;#x27;re winning at life in America...&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;If having more money and a bigger house is winning that&amp;#x27;s true, but many people don&amp;#x27;t see life that way. Being happy, having time to enjoy life with your friends, doing worthwhile and interesting things, raising your kids well, etc are also ways to win. &lt;i&gt;In general&lt;/i&gt; if you talk to an older, wealthy person, they say those are things that should have done instead of working so much.</text></comment>