I moved to Australia six months ago (Sydney). Maybe I’m too fresh to have a real opinion about it yet, but so far I’m happy. It’s been an adjustment, and in some ways it’s an easier move than many because there is no language barrier and the cultures on a global scale are pretty similar.

I dislike how far away it is from the rest of the world and from my family (and it’s $$ to visit anyone) and having to only call at certain times of the day because everyone is asleep with the time zone difference. I also think sometimes Aussies can be kind of myopic (but Americans can too). And it’s a bit of a nanny state which can be a bit annoying.

But I have an awesome job and my husband has really great career prospects here. We live near the beach in a global city that is super diverse with great weather and there’s really a lot to like about this country. Lots of great Asian food. Life’s pretty nice here!

We want to have a kid, and we’ll see how it goes. Maybe it will just be too hard with extended family on the other side of the globe. But for now we’re enjoying it.

Things that I don’t miss

--The gun stuff
--That on guard walking home at night downtown especially in places with high numbers of aggressive homeless people
--Less integration of kids and families into public spaces
--Tipping culture
--Frigid weather

As an example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/11aerri/of_female_researchers_for_each_country/

you can see that most Western European countries have female researcher rates of like 25-30%.

The UK at 38% is closer to the US (~43% according to the NSF). For what that’s worth.

Re: maternity leave, only relevant to skilled labor PhD types (but this thread is about it, so anyway):

One thing I have noticed as a woman professional. This is a complicated thing…because it is definitely good for families to have longer parental leave and I totally respect people who value family over career to the point where having a career once you become a mother isn’t an aspiration at all. But I am a PhD academic who runs an experimental research lab and I have many more models for how to do this successfully in the US as a mother than most other countries with better parental leave policies. Not every working mother wants to be an academic or do some other competitive job where taking maternity leave is super disruptive, but some do. I would argue that especially in my work environment, the places I have been that have better gender balance have been more functional and inclusive places and it’s striving to have closer to gender parity for leadership positions within an organization or career trajectory is a worthwhile goal.

I live in Australia now, and I think the gender parity is better than many countries. The parental leave benefits are very good. In addition to the federally allowed universal parental leave (18 weeks at minimum wage), I have union negotiated 9 months of paid leave for my job, men are also able take carer’s leave, and there are formal processes to consider career interruptions during promotion processes. However, the grant environment is super competitive and being a scientist is totally reliant on momentum. The roadmap for actually taking this generous parental leave without sabotaging your career is basically…be more awesome than your male colleagues. The women I know who have taken leave had more grants and were typically at a more advanced career stage than their male colleagues. Then you hope when you come back that you still have a career. In the US, this isn’t a solved issue, but the shorter 3-4 months leave is less disruptive than 9 months leave and I just see more women who are able to be successful having taken maternity leave without being within the top 10% of achievement.

Switzerland is especially bad for high level women professionals with families, like basically one of my colleagues who worked in Switzerland said she found the sexism super high and a lot of structural features that pushed women into being stay at home wives or doing part time work. Other women like the option to move to part time work when their kids were little where society is set up for it, but it can sometimes feel like it’s not a choice.

The work environment varies A LOT by country and organization. Some countries are much better about having men take equally long parental leaves, or having daycare that is affordable and supported by the government. But many women I know have reported feeling a lot of unspoken scrutiny when being hired for competitive roles in their late 20s and 30s with the concern that they would leave and take those competitive benefits and leave the employer in a lurch.

So paradoxically, our messed up system can sometimes promote something closer to gender equality as messed up as that sounds.

I just moved 6 months ago, so my understanding of the cost of things is pretty recent and inflation was higher then than it is now. Inflation is way worse in Australia, and I have spoken to colleagues in various European countries and Canada and they say the same.

Hmm, with regard to inflation, the US is one of the countries that has suffered the least from inflation post-COVID. Europe has insanely inflated energy costs from the war in Ukraine. I live in Australia now, but the AUD is so weak right now compared to the USD and we also have much worse inflation.