Working women in the United States enjoy no such benefit at all.

do as you're told or be incarcerated

Back in the 60's I was amazed at the rights German workers had. They didn't get paid as much as we did, but not that much less and their costs were lower while their benefits were amazing.

Later on, I worked with a British guy who insisted he still be paid by the British subsidiary while he worked here. His benefits and rules beat ours by miles.

The US isn't any more the workers' paradise they want you to believe it is than the old Soviets were.

OTOH, it's not any easier to get a good job with bennies in Europe than it is here-- the rules are so tight that many employers hire temps (just like here) to get around them.

How can they afford to do business there and yet, in the U. S., fair working conditions would kill their businesses.

They had so many official holidays in the conservative South of Germany, that a lot of people started coming in for a few hours just to get a couple things done on their day off. Then they'd head home after running a report, getting caught up, doing some programming.

And their productivity was higher than the home offices.

So more time off, means more rested employees, means more productive overall than the American employees. It was definitely eye-opening.

I'm gonna buy in to the most efficient European pension system I can find and move there.

they're doing "something" right.

leave when they have a child... And no one seems to be "bilking" the system by having multiple offspring... In some countries the number of people are declining, unless they have an influx of immigration.

most ppl where i work have 20 days to be used as anything. after five years you get another five days off for a total of 25 days. no more bumps in days until 15 years vested.

people naturally try to take all their days as vacay and end up coming into work sick a lot in the fall when school is back in session.

it's a super stressful workplace so i don't begrudge anyone wanting as much vacay as possible. i work 60 hour weeks on salary, with no overtime...that's just to keep my head above water. i'm having a major guit trip for taking 1.5 days off for this holiday.

it just sucks that the rules are set to discourage using time off for being sick.

and drifted into becoming a permanent resident through a series of small decisions.

Now, nearly 40 years later, she has an IT job for the Norwegian government. As a resident of Norway, she automatically gets four weeks of paid vacation. As a government employee, she gets an extra week, and now that she just turned 60, she gets still another week for a total of six weeks.

My Norwegian relatives travel A LOT.