How do you rate the standard of living in the UK?

[Socci]

Today my mum said that she would consider migration to another country if she was younger because she feels that the standard of living in this country is not good enough and is getting worse.

What is your view on this? What do you think is good compared with other places in the world? What would you change?

My uncle emigrated to Australia about 30 years ago and he and his wife have never been completely happy.

So is it a case of the grass is always greener?

I am from Scandinavia (Finland), and the standard of living in there is so, so, SO much better. There is better quality of affordable housing, state provided childcare, education, healthcare, dental care - you are looked after. Family life is valued more, in that working hours (flexi-time is common), maternity/paternity leave is abundant, employers don't frown if you take time off to care for a sick child etc. The environment is clean, people take value of their environment, recycling is facilitated. Outdoor life is fantastic - lakes, forests etc.

BUT. BUT. BUT. The culture is so backward, xenophobic, intolerant, narrow-minded, provincial, stuck in their rigid traditions that I would feel suffocated if I had to go back. There is institutional jealosy. Individualism is frowned upon. Once you are over thirty you start behaving like your parents. You are taxed to oblivion. There is no music scene, many young people I know don't even own a CD player. The opportunities in the private sector especially the creative industry and for small businesses are nothing like in the UK. Salaries are lower.

I prefer the UK any day.

OzJo has put her finger on it. UK when youre young and single (for jobs, laundrettes, takeaways, music etc), somewhere better when youve got a family.

standard of living in UK is not good, you dont realise it until you go somewhere else.

Most of europe is more cosmopolitan than what you describe in Finland, kitegirl! I think UK and Finland perhaps represent 2 extreme cases.

That sounds perfect KG! All the essentials are very well catered for and in the troubled decades ahead, that's going to mean alot!

It's bad news for Oz though, apparently. It's one of the case studies in Jared Diamond's book Collapse. I don't want to scare you if you live there, but I'd recommend reading it just to get a pragmatic overview.

FWIW, every optimumly inhabitable place in the world will soon be overcrowded and if we don't learn to be more community minded we're all going to be at each others throats, literally. It's not good moving on, that in fact will just make it worse.

kitegirl - I think you have hit the nail on the head !

I think the standard living in London for many people with children is rubbish (unless your husband is on £300 K plus !!), but as I said in my earlier post and as you have said one has to balance this with the positive side of living in a place like London.

I would like my son to go to university here as I still think the UK has some of the best universities in the world. I feel very priviledged to have been to a top university here in London and would not deny that to my son.

He is only 20 months now, so I am thinking way ahead and make sure I top up his Child Trust Fund to the max. every year as it may make life easier for him when he turns 18.

Koolkat - why is your husband who has to be on £300k plus? what's wrong with female earnings at this level. I agree it's less likely but not impossible.

Mrs Wobble - sorry I didn't mean to sound sexist !

I had a very decent standard of life when I worked as a corporate lawyer before my son was born, but what I said in my post further down is that once a mother gives up her job to stay at home with her children the standard of living here in the UK collapses. We just don't get the support they seem to be getting over in Scandanavia.

My son is only 20 months old and I will stay with him until he goes to school. My way out of the situation is to set up my own business and work from home.

Yes, of course a woman can earn fantastic amounts of money in London !!

On balance - it's very high:

Pros of living in UK

National Health Service
Free education for all children
Uncensored media
Generous benefit system for those that need it
Low unemployment
Relatively low poverty
Wide access to good food

However, some of the above could also be seen as cons, eg:

Postcode lottery of NHS system
ditto re: state education and dumbing down of educational standards
Rising crime
Seemingly national apathy when it comes to political issues and encouraging those on the electoral register to get up and vote

However, the single, one advantage for our family would have to be the (generally) non-racist, tolerant attitude that exists in the UK. My dh is non-white, my dd is brown skinned and I am white. Most folk don't bat an eyelid but I imagine there are plenty of countries where we might not be so welcome.

that's good for you guys, however we did have eyelids batted at us, only by the conceited middle classes who consider themselves against even remotely racist remarks and only once we brought the fragrant boys in to the equation.

Families like ours are ten a penny round here, another distinct and personal advantage

should have been " incapable" not "against"

OZJo, you are not comparing like for like. Hobart and London are hardly the same. If i wanted to live in Scotland, I could probably buy a place for a similar amount. Sydney and London house prices are comparable.

by the way our earnings are no where near 300k but we have quite a nice quality of life.

In general though, I would say that Australia is more racist than britian. You just dont hear educated people here referring to others using terms such as Abo, chink etc.

Bloss, I dont understand what you are saying about Britian not having a problem with an indigenous population because they left them behind. The indigenous population is still here. White English, scottish, Irish etc.
I dont know how old you are but I certainly did not grow up singing god save the Queen.

Cori, I'm 32.

And I can honestly say I've never heard ANY educated person in Australia use 'Abo' or 'chink'. (I'm excepting some koori work colleagues who have used 'abo'.) I accept it may be different in rural areas, but it is absolutely not the norm in educated circles (or even in a lot of not so educated circles - and I mix in them too!).

I was extremely shocked when I heard a white British friend of mine warn me against a certain area of town as she once waited for a bus there and was..... "The only white person on the bus". Never heard anything like that from an Aussie but then she was from Cheltenham

Isn't there a current initiative to get more people to move to Oz? I saw it on the news last year. I remember cause they said they wanted more 'English' people to go there.

Not that I've heard of, MT.

I'd echo what kayzed said about working in Australia - I found it was definitely a "heads down, no chatting" sort of place in the office I worked in, much less laid back than a similar company in the UK. I think it is a myth that workplaces there are more easy going.

the WA govt is begging British People to come over, absolutely begging us.

Where are you Suz?

Western Australia
Perth
Most isolated capital state city in the world

I do find this 'the grass is greener syndrome' that is rampant in the UK rather weird.
The NHS - whilst it has it's faults - is great. My daughter just had surgery for a bone-anchored hearing aid (it sits on an implant behind her ear). The whole procedure costs the NHS approx. £6K. Nobody batted an eyelid at this, she was put on the waiting list and 3 months later had her operation. I am on a mailing list of other parents and adult users of this kind of hearing aid, and to hear the battles the non-UK folks have regarding funding, it's just a complete nightmare and people have to pay thousands towards it.
The schooling here - you know what, if you get a good school, and I dare say that most schools are actually pretty good - is fab. I can only compare it with Germany's school system, but would honestly say that I would never move to Germany because the schools here are just so, so, so much better. England regularly does very well in international education standards comparisons (usually in the top 5 out of 40 countries), but these achievements are never reported - after all, people much prefer to bitch and moan!
The unemployment rate is also very low compared with so many other western countries, and wages are comparatively high.
Of course there are problems - but other countries have their own, just as infuriating problems. Houses in Germany are much nicer, bigger, better built and cheaper than here, but Germany seems to be going through a permanent national depression and has high unemployment.

I think it gets to the point when people have it good, as it were they want it even better. Hence rich people become incredibly greedy and selfish and cost the average taxpayer more than any dole fiddler with the tax avoidance scams they all exploit.

but then we're all drivien to want more by consumerism...and we just can't help obliging

i don't think the UK is that bad, we could do a lot worse!

My DH is australian and is pretty much a modern man, not much of the neanderthal in him.

we lived in australia, live in london now, and will return to australia when i feel ready. only really doing it coz i agreed to do it years ago and should really stick to the deal.

the Uk has it's bad points, Oz has it's good points, but it's not the land of milk and honey, it has it's own problems and some of the same ones shared by the UK.

i think labour laws are worse over there, and set to get worse. i don't feel as though there is as much job security over there. from what i can see of DH's education, his as pretty poor, even though he went to a private school over there. i went to the roughest comp in town but still feel as though i am better educated than him.

the standard of living, while i lived there, was a lot cheaper but i think it's getting more expensive day by day, especially when GST was introduced. property prices seem to be rocketing.

australia has nice weather, lots of space, lovely people and a relaxed lifestyle some of the time.

i really don't think anyone should slag off our country and flounce off to oz thinking it's going to be better without proper research. i think we're actually very lucky, we could be living in afghanistan, or ethiopia

btw, speedymama, totally agree with you

g

I think if we aligned ourselves more with Europe than America then the UK would be better. I do think it is a good place to live but we are becoming so consumerist it scares me. Europe seems to have a much more family oriented, natural way of life which we should embrace, especially as Britain is part of Europe and only a stones throw from France. Why do we continually copy the US and embrace that dreadful, dreadful culture when they are sodding miles away - I don't get it!

I think if we aligned ourselves more with Europe than America then the UK would be better. I do think it is a good place to live but we are becoming so consumerist it scares me. Europe seems to have a much more family oriented, natural way of life which we should embrace, especially as Britain is part of Europe and only a stones throw from France. Why do we continually copy the US and embrace that dreadful, dreadful culture when they are sodding miles away - I don't get it!