You have to put this into perspective though . Americans will have less vacation days but in general get paid more to make up for it . For example , take an average mechanical engineer in the USA vs France . The median pay for a mech engineer in the US is $ 67 , 935 M e chanicalEngineerSalaryThe median pay for a mech engineer in France is 41 , 031 M e c h a n icalEngineerSalaryInstead of directly converting euros to dollars , we can use Purchasing Power Parity converter to directly relate price levels btw the countries , in this case it comes out to $ 46 , 414 . 53 . So by giving up a week or 2 , Americans take home an additional $ 21 , 520 . France ' s tax brackets are also higher but hey , free health careIt really comes down to the difference of having a live to work vs a work to live culture .