Universal
health care, better public education systems, socially liberal
attitudes, a frustration with American politics ... there are many
reasons to live in Europe.
Even with the U.S. dollar’s weakness against the euro and the pound,
Europe continues to be a major vacation spot for American tourists. But
for many other Americans, Europe is more than a place to visit or go on
holiday; it is where they live, work,
get married
and are possibly raising a family. According to the Association of
Americans Resident Overseas (AARO), more than 5.08 million Americans
(not counting those serving in the U.S. military) are living outside the
United States—and roughly 1.2 million of them can be found in different
parts of Europe.
But what are the main things that make American expatriates want to
live in Europe permanently or indefinitely? Universal health care,
better public education systems, lower crime rates, socially liberal
attitudes, a frustration with American politics? The reasons why some
American expatriates prefer life in Europe over life in the U.S. can
vary, but according to Joanna Hubbs (president and senior editor of the
expatriate-oriented website TransitionsAbroad.com and author of the book
“Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth in Russian Culture”), the main reason
why Americans initially decide to move to Europe is because they fall
in love with all the cultural beauty that Europe has to offer. And after
they have taken the plunge and become situated, things like universal
health care, a
social safety net, a strong infrastructure and socially liberal attitudes may encourage them to stay.
According to AARO, European countries that have more than 100,000
American expatriates include Germany, France, Spain, the U.K., Italy and
Greece. And one of the Americans who has spent many years living in
Spain is Angela Carson, a Los Angeles native who specializes in
marketing for high-tech start-up companies and has been raising her
daughter in the Barcelona area. Carson first moved to Barcelona in 1993;
she moved back to Southern California in 1997 but returned to
Northeastern Spain in 2003 and has been raising her daughter (who is now
15) there ever since.
Carson said that there is a long list of reasons why she likes
raising her teenage daughter in Spain, including universal health care,
low rates of violent crime, socially liberal attitudes and Spain’s
educational system. Carson asserted that although Spain—with its
same-sex marriage (which the Spanish parliament legalized in 2005),
topless beaches, legal prostitution, widespread acceptance of erotic
entertainment and comprehensive sex education programs—would be
considered permissive in the American Bible Belt, she finds that there
is less social dysfunction in Spain than in the United States.
“I’ve been living in Spain on and off for 18 years,” Carson said,
“and I have never seen a pregnant teenager here like you see in the
States. Never. I live in a small village south of Barcelona where
everyone talks, and I just don’t hear about pregnant teenagers. There’s
just a responsibility level here that’s different than in the States.
Sex is a discussion here; you can see nudity on television here in
Spain, and families joke around about sex—whereas in the States, you
don’t have any of that, but you have high teenage pregnancy rates, high
divorce rates, high incest rates, and high molestation rates. Everything
is so controlled in the States, much more so than it is here in Spain.
And yet, so many social problems are much worse in the States.”
Ask a Europe-based American expatriate what things he/she misses the
most about the U.S., and the answer could be anything from baseball
games to shopping at Trader Joe’s. American expatriates might choose
Florence for its art galleries, pasta and cappuccino or Paris for its
museums and architecture, but a part of
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