Fair, my strong impression has been that average people in most countries in Europe put relatively less into private pension schemes than equivalent Americans. I know that is the case in the UK, for example.
My state pension alone in the US is notionally ~$4k per month when I reach retirement age (plus all the other subsidies and free stuff). Despite this, Americans are pretty much indoctrinated from birth to assume that won’t exist and to have alternative plans. This leads to the interesting phenomenon where many people that weren’t particularly well off during their working years find themselves relatively flush with money during retirement because they were operating from a pessimistic model.
> My state pension alone in the US is notionally ~$4k per month
That's huge! Does the US state pension scale based on your lifetime contributions (amount, not just years)? Because int he UK, if I retired with a full state pension today, I'd get $1345 per month. To achieve this you need to have contributed about a minimum threshold per year for 35 years. There is no way to increase this amount, only decrease it by not meeting the 35 years requirement. So to me, given the rhetoric about the US, $4k per month state pension along is insane.
That leads to a much bigger phenomenon where seniors are catered to in the US with products and services and treated with a lot of attention and ads while many seniors in Europe (especially Eastern Europe) live on government mercy and in horrible conditions.