Why do we have such a low standard of living compared with Australia or New Zealand?

[Iggypoppie]

Disclaimer - never actually been but have watched a lot of Wanted Down Under

Just watched an episode of Wanted Down Under where the woman was told she could earn up to £40k pa working in a bridal dress shop. (£s not $s). And even after higher costs would be loads better off than in the UK.

This has been the case for most who are on the programme - including health and education workers.

So if the UK is a wealth country, why do we have such a low standard of living compared with these countries? (Assuming that the programme is accurate).

Am I missing something?

oh you live in NZ Betty? yeh they were awful, it puts you totally on edge and is quite traumatizing. I love Chch and wish it could go back to how it was before.

I always wanted to live in Wellington which I also love but was scared of potential earthquakes and ended up in ChCh

Disagree- I live there. Wages are higher but house prices are a joke as is renting. Most Stafford to live by the beach (Melbourne) so I live in a crappy suburb, at a high cost. I work 50 hours a week for this privilege, and barely see nice weather due to working and location of crappy suburb no where near anywhere decent. Food is Evie dive and much less choice in some regards. Entertainment expensive. Petrol cheaper, further to travel when in outer suburbs to anywhere worth going. Can't speak for other states.

I always wanted to live in Wellington which I also love but was scared of potential earthquakes and ended up in ChCh

Oh dear! After Sept 4th, when I rang Mum as soon as I was able (thank God for a landline), the first thing she said to me, in a voice of great reproach, (as if somehow it was all my fault), was, but mbos - Christchurch?!

My grandmother went through the 1929 Murchison earthquake, and husband went through the 1987 Edgecumbe earthquake. It is something you do have to resign yourself to in NZ - tain't nowhere safe from an earthquake.

I guess Melbourne is similar to Sydney.. to have a good quality of life you need money and lots of if.. my observation having spent three months living in Sydney (house sitting way out west) ideally I'd live in the eastern suburbs or the inner west. Maybe if I won the lotto this would be possible. But I'm guessing houses in these areas are a million plus easily. Any further out west and you're commuting a lot which wouldn't appeal to me.

yeh it was totally unexpected wasn't it @mbosnz

this from my recent time at home.. we were in town and there was a memorial for the 1931 EQ (My Nana was in that one, aged 11 at the time)

I spent a month with relatives who live in a Sydney suburb over Xmas/new year. They are similar to us in terms of income (relative), family age and size, types of jobs, proximity to large city etc etc.

I can honestly say their lives are pretty much identical to ours in every way except they don’t have many friends or a support network like we do.

I just cant see the appeal of emigrating and moving so far away from everything and everyone you know. You just can’t replace that shit with days on the beach.

£30/$55 ish
Much better quality than fish and chips here though - I don't buy them here as they are disgusting in comparison, I'll wait until I'm next back and have some. Fresh caught fish that day, fluffy light batter, yum.

@LookStupidInEverything I wish I did! I'm in the UK now and it's just not the same.

I wonder which little village you're in - I was/still am a Cantab' girl!

Cantab is the place to be

I haven't had any fish since I've been here but am pretty impressed by the Ulster fry I have to say! I know what you mean though. I have a very clear memory of the fish and chips I had on my first night back in NZ in 2012, the fish was that beautiful and fresh and this is just from your standard fish and chip shop, nothing particularly fancy but just so so delicious

know what you mean though. I have a very clear memory of the fish and chips I had on my first night back in NZ in 2012, the fish was that beautiful and fresh

WIBU to fly there tomorrow just to have fish and chips

I could be back for work next week....

@bettybattenburg YANBU

Are you from the UK or NZ or somewhere else entirely Betty?

The UK thanks to an oversight on the part of my grandparents, I can't live in NZ now unless I marry somebody from there.

Damn that sucks especially if you want to go back.. maybe try online dating and see if you can snag yourself a kiwi that way

You never know!

They are probably about twenty years behind the rest of the world and their treatment of minority and indigenous people is questionable to say the least

This is an ironic comment, coming from the Brits who perpetrated colonialism in the first place ! Oz indigenous had their home stolen by the British - you can't get much more " questionable" than that

And just re Australian Medicare, yes Oz does have universal health care which is free to those who are not working , on benefits etc. working people contribute 2 1/2 % of their wage through their tax. I'm retired and all my ( excellent) health care is free for me

I have lived in all three countries and they all have their positives and negatives. A lot will also depend on where you live.
I will say that the quality of life in NZ far trumps what we had in the UK. Someone commented on the misery in the UK and I also find that. Everyone is constantly stressed and unhappy and I just didn't find that as much when I lived in Australia and even less here in NZ.
The cost of living is higher, especially food, but, we earn and save a lot more than we did in the UK.
I feel like we have a lot more freedom here. At the weekends we pack up the car and go camping or to the lake for a bbq or to the mountains and snow in the winter. In the UK we spent a lot of money eating or drinking out because the weather was often not good enough to do anything else.
We are lucky enough to live in a house that is properly insulated with a huge fireplace and central heating, but I have experienced older kiwi homes and it was not pleasant in the winter months!

We lived in NZ for a year (2016) before coming back to UK as on balance we felt life was better back here. Dh did earn more money in NZ (Doctor), and paid less tax. Everything is much more expensive there though! Groceries and white goods are eye watering! Advanced in technology??? Errr not really it took 3 months to be able to get broadband connected.
Healthcare is good but waiting lists in the Government hospitals are very long. You really need to have health insurance. Having said that the NHS is on its knees now anyway.
Housing is poorly built, as pps have said cold and damp. Most houses look like wooden shacks.
Public transport is nothing like in the UK, you need to drive everywhere really.
Feeling 20 years behind? Yeah I’m sorry it did feel like we’d gone back in time. I thought I would like that but actually I just found it frustrating.
But I don’t think it helped where we were based (Hamilton) felt quite rough.
On the plus side the beaches were stunning and we spent every weekend at them.

Housing is poorly built, as pps have said cold and damp. Most houses look like wooden shacks

Not where we were, maybe in some areas but the town and the surrounding villages they weren't like that. I know a lot don't have central heating, we had radiators in one and wood burners in another and it was toasty except when a storm was coming in.

I've lived for extended periods in various parts of the UK (NI and London), also a small Irish city, and I'm now in Western Australia. All were good places too live (although I wouldn't move back to NI), and comparing prices is very difficult as wages and house prices and petrol vary so much., even within one country, so it really is apples and oranges.

Speaking anecdotally I had an excellent wage when I lived in London in the 90s and early 2000s as I was an accountant, but we thought ourselves lucky to live in a tiny one bedroomed flat, and my commute was a nightmare. Still it was fun, and we were young. I took a huge pay cut to move to Ireland where life was certainly more laid back, but not so culturally stimulating. But we could afford a nice house, especially when my wages increased quite quickly (Ireland was booming). House prices quickly became utterly ridiculous though, and then collapsed, as did the economy. My husband lost his job, and Ireland, beautiful as it is, is bloody expensive on one wage. Also the weather is shit. So we emigrated.

As for Oz, we certainly feel our quality of life has increased a lot, and its not just the weather. We are on fairly average salaries for here, I'm certainly not the high flier I used to be. But we just bought a house with a pool 5 minutes from the beach. We live in an absolutely gorgeous area (that has been on WDU). Our neighbours are tradies, police, nurses etc, yet most of them have boats and jet-skis, several cars and holiday a few times a year. It can get a bit Ramsey Street at times with bbqs etc, but its a much more laid back and positive environment, and certainly a world away from rainy Ireland and bustling London. For us, it has worked out really well. However if we'd moved to Sydney we would have been totally priced out of the market, and life would have been very different!

So, all I can say is, you can't generalise. And its different strokes for different folks. But don't condemn a place because you don't know much about it, and remember Oz is enormous, what is true of one bit certainly wont apply to all, so if you make sweeping generalisations you're going to look a bit daft!

I earn far less here, NZ, than I would in the UK. Most things cost a lot more - cars, electrical goods, FOOD!!
That said, food is far more seasonal here - it has to be because importing anything is so expensive.
Also, we are totally dependent on two or three key exports (milk and wood) and tourism. Both of which are heavily hit right now by coronavirus - so people are being laid off all over the country.
It is cleaner and after school today my 9 year old will walk home from school, where he has a pool and woods to play in, for 15 minutes and then go play outside with some sticks and a knife, up the valley in more woods. Far away from me. And he may break his leg but no one will say that was neglect!!

I've just thought of something else which has improved my quality of life! In the UK and Ireland I used to get loads of colds every winter which made me miserable! My husband and son were the same, from September onwards until Spring at least one of us would be sniffing and coughing. I've been in Oz seven years now, and honestly don't remember the last time any of us had a cold. Maybe that's just us, but its a definite plus.