Last month, France was paralyzed by strikes as angry workers took to the streets to protest a law that would raise the country’s retirement age to 62.

France’s retirement reform is just the latest successful push by a European government to cut back on government spending. Despite these sorts of cuts, Chicago labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan believes that the European model of social democracy, where governments offer free child care, free nursing home care and generous unemployment payments, is better than what we have here in the United States.

He wrote about this in his most recent book “Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life.”

WBEZ’s Robert Wildeboer sat down with Geoghegan to find out what Europe is doing differently.