Vive la France! yes!! Vivre en France? well.... maybe California instead

The private supplemental health insurance that travelwithcats mentions are called mutuelles, and usually your employer provides one. That would be another 20 to 30 euros out of your monthly net (not gross, net), and at least in tech, mutuelles are really good, like great. My company's covers a free pair of prescription eyeglasses every 2 years, they reimburse opthalmologists, and they also cover a yearly dental checkup and cleaning. I live in Nice and work in Sophia Antipolis, so can definitely speak to that experience. The only downside is that you will probably have a hard time finding a home as opposed to an apartment here. For very good reason: there's no more land left. Nice is actually the cheapest city to live in, with Grasse a very close second. The reason Grasse is cheaper, however, is that it's hard to get anywhere from there, compared to other places. There are only two practicable roads to Sophia Antipolis (I imagine this is where you'd be working if you're in tech), and people who work in Sophia long ago discovered Grasse. In other words, you can count on the 15km drive taking anywhere from 40-60 minutes between 7am and 9am. There is no train from Grasse to Sophia, and there is only one bus every hour. On the other hand, Nice is extremely well-serviced in public transportation. You would not need a car if you lived in Nice, which is a huge savings. For instance, my yearly transportation budget for anywhere between Cannes and the Italian border is 180 euros/year. It would be 365/year, but my employer reimburses half, as do most employers. Buses take you anywhere and everywhere, Nice has a tram line and will be getting our second, there's an international airport, trains that take you as far as Moscow... it's a pretty sweet deal. Trains aren't included in that 365/year pass, but subscriptions are cheap as well. I was working in Cagnes-sur-Mer last year, and the monthly unlimited pass cost me a grand total of 25 euros, before being fully reimbursed by my employer. (It was fully reimbursed because it was a project at a client's site, as opposed to our offices, for which transportation is "only" reimbursed at 50%.) Nice has come a long way in the last three years due to our new-ish mayor, who has made huge efforts towards returning the city to its inhabitants, children included. It's no longer the same city as even five years ago. We have brand-new parks, new libraries, new sports complexes, schools are being renovated, it's been nice to see. I have several colleagues with children and they're all happy. There are also excellent private bilingual schools, since it is a hotspot for English speakers. Yes, a lot of salary goes to the government, but in France this does mean socialized healthcare, as others have mentioned. I have a chronic condition that I've never had to worry about here, have been to the hospital several times now, always covered at about 98-99%. For instance, a trip to a private ER http://perso.fraise.net/permalink/2012/10/1565/, the rest was reimbursed. The peace of mind this gives is priceless. I can go cycling and not have to worry about an accident costing me my life's savings. If you would be working in Sophia Antipolis, it's also good to know that in France, tech companies are not like in the States. The 35-hour workweek is the 35-hour workweek, period. If your company is, say, on a 37-hour workweek (mine is), you will get extra vacation days called RTT. By the way... now I'm surprised you didn't mention vacation as a consideration! In France we get 21 days minimum paid vacation a year, and often employers tack on extra days. With my company, I'm now at 39 paid vacation days per year, which is wild. You also get practically-unlimited (you can go as long as 2 years) sick leave, so long as you go to a doctor and they agree that you need it. They then write up an arrêt maladie that you send to your local healthcare management office, and a copy to your employer. Voilà, taken care of! You do NOT get unlimited sick days in the States. Plus, in France, many employers offer paid sick leave for your children, meaning if your child gets sick, you can call in, take the day off to care for your kid, and still be paid. And yes, omigod the food here. Delicious. We have lovely markets in Nice. I can't carry home more than 15 euros' worth of market vegetables and fruit, that's how cheap it is. Most are organic and local, local as in they drive in their produce from the hillsides a couple kilometers away. I know I sound like I love Nice, but it also has its drawbacks. I don't talk about them often because they tend to get blown out of proportion by people who love to snark on France, but they do exist. For one, the hardest thing I have to deal with in this area is the casual xenophobia. The southeast is the traditional home of the Front National, they always do well in elections here, and you can really, really tell in everyday life. I've gotten sick enough of it that I'm seriously considering moving elsewhere for almost no other reason than that. If you work in an international office, it will probably be muted. I don't work in an international office. I'm the only native English speaker, and how to put it... there's a reason I'm the only one, and it has to do with me still being an easygoing Pac Northwesterner at heart, otherwise they would have zero native English speakers. Thankfully it's a big company and we have offices elsewhere, so I'm trying elsewhere. The point of my tangent being: if you too have a rough time dealing with casual xenophobia such as "foreigners steal our jobs" at lunch in front of you and everyone else says "ugh, I know, they need to go away", try for Paris or Toulouse instead. Toulouse still has an FN contingent, but it's not quite as entrenched as here. Paris is very diverse. The other downside of the French Riviera is the cachet it still holds. A lot of people come here for appearances, not so much fulfillment. It can be difficult to find people to relate to if you enjoy the outdoors or, heck, even animals. On the other hand, if you care about appearances, you've got an instant social in. This is another reason I'm looking to leave, because I swear, if I have to spend yet another lunch listening to people – men and women, it's nearly everyone here – talk about salads and carbs and panic about fat... (French women are thin because they do.not.eat. There is no mystery diet. They do.not.eat. Yes, I am generalizing, there are exceptions! But very few on the Riviera. I've lived here for 14 years.) My cats are very happy in my 480sq.ft (45sq.m) apartment, but I do have a 200sq.ft (180sq.m) patio. Cats adapt! They don't necessarily like changing homes, but if you're consistent about where they can and can't go, they get used to it and create new habits. Household goods are at comparable prices to the States, for comparable quality. Sales tax is included in prices, and stores/manufacturers usually try to work it so that the final price, tax included, is roughly the same price as it would be in the States before sales tax. To qualify for parental leaves in France, you just have to be a permanent employee who's no longer in the probation period given to new hires. Usually that probation period lasts 3-6 months, it can't last longer than 7. Once that's done, you're gold!

I don't know the US tax system, but I gather our take home would be much higher than France (or Canada for that matter). This is not a like for like comparison. In the US, you will have to pay for healthcare; I realise the system is changing but you need to understand employer insurance. The average cost for insurance in CA is $15,898 per year, with employers covering $11,705 and you covering something like $400 per month. You will also need to pay for disability insurance, especially if you only have one parent working. You will also need to consider the costs of private vs public education and choose your location with extreme care if a good public school district is important to you. House prices in these districts http://www.cleiss.fr/docs/regimes/regime_france/an_1.html has a socialised base healthcare system paid for by the higher taxes, statutory maternity and paternity leave, statutory maternity pay, and a child benefit payment system. Private schooling is vastly less expensive if you don't like your free schooling options. I have no idea which would be better for your family but I am confident it isn't as simple as [ income - taxes - housing = clear winner ]

There are some other differences to think about that are more about quality of life and lifestyle and only secondarily equate to money. For reference, I am an American who has lived in Europe since 1997. Even in the cheapest grocery store, absolutely none of our food is genetically modified, our eggs are not stripped and our milk isn't stuffed with milk production hormones. The beef you buy, in a grocery store or a butcher, will be grass fed. No bacon you buy will ever, ever have been raised on a conveyor belt. None of that is some weird special thing you have to go to Whole Foods and pay a premium for; that's the agricultural standard here, and it is very, VERY different from the US median. Sure, you can eat like this in the US and many people do, but it comes at a cost premium. I actually don't care that much about this stuff, but do I appreciate not having to. And obviously, for cultural access, Europe probably wins in terms of what it can offer. Aside from being able to raise bilingual children with EU passports and dual citizenship, you have cheap one to two hour access to 32 different countries and their languages, foods, museums, music, etc. It's pretty great!

I wouldn't be as concerned with money - that's plenty of money for BOTH places - so much as culture and values. I'm raising young children in the U.S., and honestly, I'd REALLY prefer to raise them elsewhere in the world. You can always modify your budget, and you can generally work your way up the corporate food chain, but you CANNOT always change the ways in which the greater culture affects your children. Think hard about the things you value, the things you'd like your kids to value, the grown-ups you'd like them to become. You can't control this 100%, of course, but conveying certain beliefs is easier in some cultures than in others. And it's kinda heartbreaking to realize midway through your childrearing years that you're waging a Sisyphean battle: that everything YOU'RE trying to tell the kids is being directly contradicted by everything the world AROUND THEM is telling them.

So on California... it's hard to quantify as my kids weren't born here and by the time I got here they were an ongoing part of my budget. But I think you will find that San Diego or the outskirts of LA are fine on anything from $150K up honestly. Insurance varies widely. People with very good coverage through work might only pay $1500 annually for extremely good coverage. Going through CoveredCalifornia (the CA ACA site) could be $500+ monthly, but it could be less if you go for more basic coverage. The cost of having a baby is something like $20K in terms of the basic hospital bill from what I have heard from co-workers, but some of those people only end up paying $10 out-of-pocket because it's all covered by insurance. You might hit your annual spending cap having a baby, so perhaps project based on that - annual caps might be anywhere from $1000 to infinity. The US health insurance situation is impossible to summarize as it depends almost completely on what coverage you're offered through your employer. My kids are in middle & high school now and the costs of the child by itself are low. Childcare for small children is really expensive. Either one parent doesn't work or you get a nanny which is in the range of $20K+ annually. There is no easy solution here and it's really regardless of location - the same is true in France or Canada. Until they're school-aged someone needs to care for the child all day long. Whether you forgo income or pay for a nanny is a personal choice and neither one is really right or wrong. There are pros and cons to each. Cost of living in San Diego is OK, but then I'm comparing it to the brutally expensive South SF Bay. You can check house costs on sites like Redfin to estimate housing costs. Generally living expenses like food, etc are really cheap in the US. Whether you live 100 miles from work is up to you and depends on where you work. But in generally I don't think San Diego is an especially expensive city but again, I already live in one of the most expensive regions, so anywhere else seems cheap by comparison. There are cost of living calculators on sites like salary.com. San Diego's median house price is about $430K which is high relative to the entire US, but not far off metro Toronto and a steal compared to the average price of about $800K for metro Vancouver. The commute is what you make of it. Without more specific details there's simply no way to know. I am a Canadian who relocated to the Bay Area several years ago and it's fine. Is it fun? Sure. Is it the same as Canada? No. Is it the same as France? No. It has it's own pros and cons. FWIW, I meet a lot of people from France in the Bay Area who moved here for work. Most of them seem happy.

Friends who have spent sabbaticals at the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice_Observatory (one couple is two Americans; the other is Czech/Brazilian) report that France is child un-friendly. They were surprised, since http://en.nicetourisme.com/family-friendly-nice.

The difference in income is not that huge. 140K in Euro = 190K in $. Here is a bit from the L.A times abouthttp://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0107-healthcare-spending-20140107,0,7267579.story. The number they give for average total costs is approximately $16,351 for a family health plan via an employer. The average household income is lower than your estimated future income. In France there is an universal health coverage that funds from income taxes. People tend to have private, supplemental insurance as well. As far as the French school system, yes it is centralized and therefore maybe less progressive. You could look for an American or British school, maybe? Not sure if you want to think that far ahead, and not sure what will be in 20 years, but as of now, secondary education in France is way cheaper than in the US. And lastly, who says this move has to be permanent?

Lazy Googling: http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=France, providing a range of costs for goods and services (and you can select individual cities for more details); http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=United+States&city=San+Diego%2C+CA (same site, noting the different costs for living with and outside of the "city center" of San Diego, however that is gauged). http://www.areavibes.com/san+diego-ca/cost-of-living/, though against a national average of 100 points for each category, instead of placing a dollar (or euro) amount on each category. As noted above, the cost of giving birth is not too high if you have insurance (it wasn't for us when we had our little one, back in the summer of 2011). If you're in a big city with a high income, you're more likely to opt for a private school, though I'm sure there are good public schools, too. As others have said, your combined income in the US is damned good. Even with one of you being out-of-work for a year, you're still bringing in significantly more than the http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06073.html. California is large and varied, so if San Diego isn't your cuppa, it sounds like you are both highly qualified in your field(s), so you could live in a quieter community not too far from the hubs of activity, especially if telecommuting is allowed/supported.

I'm a UK citizen who lives in California with 2 kids, and my parents live in one of the areas of France you mentioned - near Toulouse. Cost of living is definitely cheaper in that part of France, at least for housing and food IME. However, the big difference for me personally, is that I would not ever want to send my kids through the French public school system. This is an entirely personal thing - I prefer a more progressive school system, and France's is very old-fashioned. So that makes it a total dealbreaker for me personally. My partner and I briefly considered the idea last year because it is so beautiful there, and a slower pace of life.