The United States of America was officially formed on July 4th, 1776, when 13 states declared their independence from the kingdom of Great Britain, this was centuries after this region, which was part of what they called, "the new world", was officially discovered by Christopher Colombus. In the centuries that followed, European settlers will arrive with many of the first expeditions arriving from Spain, France, Germany, Holland, Scottland, and England, among other European nations claiming some slice of the American pie.
Today, many Americans have European ancestors, while not necessarily sharing much in common with their ancestors. Thomas Jefferson mentioned in America's declaration of independence that "all men are created equal" but what if we explore how equal Americans and Europeans really are.
Ok, first, let's take a look at how much European is flowing through the American's bloodstream, but before we get into that, let's take a look at the whole picture.
According to the Census Bureau, approximately:
49 million Americans affirm to have German Ancestry (Famous Americans of German descent: Sandra Bullock, John Steinbeck, Ben Affleck, Jessica Biel, Tom Cruise, Uma Thurman, David Letterman, Walt Disney, Henry J. Heinz, and Oscar Mayer).
36 million Irish Ancestry (Notable Americans of Irish descent include John F. Kennedy, Neil Armstrong, Henry Ford, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Conan O'Brien, Derek Jeter, Elvis Presley, and Bruce Springsteen)
27 million English Ancestry (Notable Americans with English ancestry include Justin Timberlake, Clint Eastwood, Orson Welles, Seth MacFarlane, George Clooney, Cher, Liza Minnelli, Ernest Hemingway, and Bill Gates)
18 million, Italian Ancestry (Famous Americans of Italian descent include Maria Bartiromo, Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, and Madonna)
10 million Polish Ancestry (Notable Americans of Polish ancestry include John Krasinski, Lisa Kudrow, Frank Gehry, Gloria Steinem, and Richie Sambora)
9 million French Ancestry (Notable Americans of French descent include Warren Buffett, Louis Chevrolet, Zooey Deschanel, Ellen DeGeneres, Paul Revere, Henry David Thoreau, and Anthony Bourdain).
6 million Scottish Ancestry (Notable Americans with Scottish heritage include Reese Witherspoon, Lucille Ball, Robert Downey Jr., Johnny Cash, Lyndon B. Johnson, Edgar Allen Poe, and Malcolm X)
5 million Scotch-Irish Ancestry (Famous Americans of Scotch-Irish descent include Ulysses S. Grant, Elvis Presley, and Andrew Jackson)
5 million Dutch Ancestry (Notable Americans of Dutch ancestry include Thomas Edison, Walt Whitman, and Theodore Roosevelt)
4 million Swedish Ancestry (Notable Americans of Swedish descent include Mark Wahlberg, Buzz Aldrin, Matt Damon, Phil Mickelson, Mamie Eisenhower, and Charles Lindbergh)
4 million Norwegian Ancestry (Famous Americans of Norwegian descent include Lance Armstrong, Sally Ride, Michelle Williams, and Renée Zellweger).
3 million Russian Ancestry (Notable Americans with Russian ancestry include Michael Bloomberg, Leonardo DiCaprio, Milla Jovovich, Sean Penn, Natalie Portman, Joan Rivers, and Michelle Trachtenberg).
2 million Welsh Ancestry (Notable Americans of Welsh descent include Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and J.P. Morgan)
1.5 million Czech Ancestry (Notable Americans of Hungarian descent include Milton Friedman, John Kerry, Paul Simon, Paul Newman, Louis CK, Kate Hudson, Steven Spielberg, Drew Barrymore, and Calvin Klein)
1.4 million Portuguese Ancestry (Famous Americans of Portuguese descent include Teresa Heinz Kerry, Tony Coelho, Katy Perry, Tom Hanks, and James Franco)
1.4 Danish Ancestry (Famous Americans of Danish descent include Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen, Scarlet Johansson, Lars Ulrich of Metallica, the Hanson brothers, and Iggy Pop)
1.2 Greek Ancestry (Americans with Greek ancestry include Jennifer Aniston; Bob Costas; Tina Fey; John Stamos; Frank Zappa; and George Papanicolaou, creator of the Pap smear)
So, with this Euro connection in mind, how much does the average American have in common with the average European citizen.
The median age, that means when half the population is younger and half the population is older, is 42.7 years for the EU and 37.9 years in the US, life expectancy in the EU is for women 82.4 years and 76.6 years for men, the American women will live in average 81.9 years and American men 77.1 years, that is, in the case of the Americans that if you are a man reaching 65 years of age, you can expect to live until you are 84.3. If you are a woman that is turning 65 years old today, you can expect to live until you are 86.6 years old.
When it comes to making babies, American women are slightly more active than European women, with an average number of births per women of 1.84 and European women giving birth to an average of 1.56. Just for clarification purposes, this does not mean that women miraculously bearing partial 0.84 or 0.56 human, this is rather an average taking from the average of the female population and the number of births.
Now, let's get some physical factors.
The height of American vs. Europeans.
the average height for an American man is 5 foot and 9.5 inches (which is 176.4 cm) while collective data from the whole EU is pretty hard to come by, however, we are talking about a continent with the highest people of the world, with the Dutch coming in first, at an average height of 6 feet (182.6 cm) for men. Dutch women are also at the top, with an average height of nearly 5.7 feet (169.9 cm) whereas American women are on average 5.4 feet (162.9 cm) tall. Just to get it right, most European countries have an average height for men and women higher than the American average.
Body Weight: American vs. European
We know Europeans beat us at height, but that cannot be said when it comes to weight, with America regularly coming at the top 5 countries of the world for average weight. The average male in the US weights 191 pounds (87 Kg) while the average women weights 164 pounds (74.4 Kg). In Europe the heaviest men average is found in the UK, weighing 185 pouns (84 Kg) and 152 pounds (69 Kg) for women.
Penis Size: American vs. European...and Let's Mention Africa
Why is this relevant enough to spend time and money to carry out studies? I don't know (in a medical or demographic point of view) but somehow we all would get curious about this whenever someone talks about this topic, so here are the results.
Although there is evident variation between individuals from different countries, this variation is completely within the normal range. So, American's best friend is 12.9 cm (5.08 inch) long on average when erect while Europe average is 14.31 cm (5.63 inches), and Africa, well the smallest guy on average is 14.9 cm (5.87 inches) and the average guy is roughly 32.73 cm (12.9 inches), I mean...we better go to Asia to be seen as Greek gods.
Money: Americans vs. Europeans
Now that we have looked at mortality and the body, let's get into some money matters. Americans are traditionally thought as a hard-working bunch of people, culturally ambitious, with our pension coming first, this might be reflected by the fact that the USA is the country with more multi-millionaires in the entire world with a number of 565, one of them, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates being the richest of them all, with a fortune around 91.2 billion dollars, in comparison, Europe has 489 multi-millionaires, with the richest being the Spanish magnate Amancio Ortega with 71.4 billion
But that elite of people is way out of our league, how about the average Joe?, well the average American gross wage per household for the workers in the US is 43,585 dollars per year, wich is the 6th highest in the world, In the case of Europe, the highest average gross wage per household was found in Luxemburg, that is 52,493 dollars per year, followed with other higher averages than the US in Sweden and Danmark.
In terms of income tax, the US is below most of the EU countries with an average income tax paid in the US of 22.7%. In Europe, the highest tax rate was found in Belgium with a 42.8%, and of course, this affects the quality of life, although this is a difficult thing to judge, and where ever you look, is measured in a different way, for example, the US says that the national income, which is the spending power of the individual is only behind the Europe country of Luxemburg. The standard of living is another matter, it lists different since the top 10 highest standards of living is dominated by Europe countries, Canada, Australia and New Zeland. Europe countries are also ranking higher on the world's happiness report where 7 European states being in front of 13th place America. Many of these countries rank higher in spite their higher cost of living, which may seem confusing given that they report being so happy. Some factors may help explain this.
The highest cost of the world in terms of healthcare is, yeah, in the USA, also, for being a highly developed country, Americans work really hard, with the US ranking in the 13th place for working the most hours and, although some EU members are above the US, they rank lower in the world's happiness report.
Taking annually paid vacations into account, in Europe, the law states that every worker should have at least 4 weeks of vacation every year, while there is a non-paid vacation for Americans (by law). This decision is left to the employer. This decision means that on average, Americans take 10 days of vacation every year, which is far lower than in the EU. The average paid vacation time for 20 years of services in the US is 20 days.
Education: American vs. European
America is a fairly an expensive place to receive University education since the average student's debt in America is $29,000, but still, this is much lower than England where students owe almost double that amount ($ 56,000) after graduation. Other EU countries like Spain, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Czchec Republic, have extremely low tuition fees to none, while in Finland, Sweden and Danmark, the University is free.
Household
The US has a lower household Debt/GDP than most Europe nations, including the big borrowers, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweeden, and Belgium. This puts the USA in 10th place on the Household debt/GDP rank.
And this is what these countries get for their money.
Houses
American live in much bigger houses than Europeans, with the average house size iquals to 2000 square feet (186 square meters), compared to houses in Europe, where you can find the biggest houses of all EU in Denmark with an area of 1500square feet (139 square meters), while in the UK, the area of an average house is 800 square feet (74 square meters).
Cars
Americans also have more motor vehicles per person, being the third biggest owners of vehicles in the world, according to a 2015 report, with 797 vehicles owned by 1000 people, when compared with Europeans that are being really far behind.
Drinking Habits
When it comes to entertaining, lots of money are spent on alchool. The Europeans are by far the world's most formidable drinkers with the biggest alcohol consumption per capita in the world and almost all the EU countries drinking more than the USA. One of the most relevant factors for this is the cost of drinks, in Slovakia and the Czche Republic, beer costs around $1.5 on bars or supermarket, compared to US average that more than double that amount.
And Finally, There is Love...Aside from Penis Sizes.
The average age of men and women in the US getting married is 29 and 27 respectively, which is much lower than about all the countries in the European Union, whose couples often wait until well after 30 years of age.
The divorce rate in 2015 was 2.0 for the EU, almost half of the marriage rate. The US had a similar rate of marriage to divorce rate at 3.6.
The most sexually satisfied countries in the EU were Spain, Italy, Greece, The Netherlands, and Germany. In the case of the USA, sexual satisfaction is showing a lower rate when compared to most EU countries.
So, all comes to money, winky size, and education, but what if we start being more confortamble with what we have, even penis size, in case you have not notice it yet, it is a lot what we have, we should not complain so much and start living happier.
Sorry for the long post, here is a German Sausage and a pretty cool video. Cheers.
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