>People living in European countries enjoy criticizing the US on stuff like this, but they fail to realize how much bigger and more spread out we are than they

>People living in European countries enjoy criticizing the US on stuff like this, but they fail to realize how much bigger and more spread out we are than they are. The US is more than twice as large as the entire EU. Our density is less than a third of the EU's. The population density may be an excuse for the poor passenger rail network, but it doesn't make sense regarding parental leave. >The US is behind in many ways, but this is not because we are backwater full of regressive idiots. We are a very large country without the density and homogeneity to benefit from good economies of scale. It's a lot easier to reach consensus and move a government forward when you have fewer people and they can more easily relate to each other. The EU has more people and still managed to legislate maternity, paternity, and parental leaves. They managed to do this while speaking 24 languages in Parliament.