[ido]

The biggest difference is that housing is a lot more expensive in western cities - it is likely that even a modest 2-room (1-bedroom) apartment in a major city like Amsterdam would cost the majority of that wage to rent (and we're not talking about just students, but older people who can't get better jobs).

[tripzilch]

You say it like you just grabbed a random example, but Amsterdam is one of the most expensive places to rent in NL. It's also generally not at all representative for the Netherlands as a whole.

[ido]

Ok, you may replace it with London, Paris, Zürich, Munich, Copenhagen, Stockholm and probably a dozen other western european cities (not to mention major American cities, which are sometimes even more extreme).