I've been bombarding you with lots of numbers in recent posts, for a good reason. I wanted to show that the average citizen in the UK has much less money to live on than in Germany. For us, it became obvious that in Britain we would not be able to experience the same standard of living as in Germany.
Especially if we wanted to start a family. For a rough comparison of the costs of two children I took the contributions for childcare, university fees and state contributions, such as child benefit, into account. Raising those two children in Germany rather than the UK would save us about 250,000 €. And this estimate did not include school fees, the generally higher costs of living in Britain or lower British wages.
After months in the UK, the difference in family life was also highlighted to me when I returned to Germany for a few days. I spent one evening with friends in Hamburg. Their flat was more than 90 square metres large. Far too small, as my hosts complained, while two pre-school children ran around the dinner table. My friends were looking for a house for their family, with a garden. And with room for all the stuff that had piled up lately.
I, on the other hand, was almost dizzy at their dining table. The walls were so far away! Even though there was a piece of furniture against each wall, I was in no danger of bumping into them when I turned my body. So much space!
I told them about my experiences in the UK. After explaining my job search and the offered wage of £35,000 per year, my host laughed at me. Like me, he has a Ph.D. in physics, and works in the development department of a company (He earns more than 70.000€ per year). He insisted I must have had confused gross wages with what is left after taxes or looked for the wrong jobs.
It took a lot of effort to convince him that I wasn't that stupid. I also told him about property prices, the costs of childcare, as well as school and university fees. Again, my counterpart reacted with disbelief, he couldn't imagine how Brits could live under these circumstances. It didn’t make any sense to him.
From a British perspective, however, their living conditions were at least as unbelievable as the other way around. Just listen to my friends plans for the near future: In addition to buying a house, they wanted to have a third child soon. Inevitably, they would also have to buy a bigger car.
Their plans stressed them out a bit. After all, all this involved effort, it would cost time and money. But the typical problems of my British friends didn't even factor in: Could they afford another child at all? Did they have financial reserves for the nursery, or would they have to wait? Shouldn't they wait anyway because of the financing of the house? But instead of worrying, they were already planning projects for parental leave…
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