Then again on the same example, compare life expectancy in France and the USA, which is 4 years longer in France.
Spain is doing even better with a lower GDP. There is correlation, but there are many other factors at play.
The average salary for public researchers in France (only PhDs) is 47 k€ per year. Most PhDs end up in public research, as the private research sector is very small.
This is gross salary, on which you need to deduce social contributions (social security, retirement, unemployment insurance, and others) and usually reduces by 20% the gross salary. Then you get to pay income taxes in this net salary, which is around 10% of the net salary.
Note that sick leave is not paid by the employer, but by social security (the employer can complement). Social security here is the public healthcare and retirement system.
I am a software developer, I've relocated from US to France within the same company, and was paid 3 times less in the same role. As the private sector has extra contributions before gross pay, I estimate the employer cost is around 2 to 2.5 times lower in my case in France than in the US.
It is now also easier to fire people in France (probable the same in other EU countries) due to recent changes in employment law.
Each EU country is going to have a slightly different pay structure, but that gives you some comparison basis.
So overall I think the 2-3x ratio in skilled worker cost in EU vs US is a good estimate.
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Christiano Ronaldo was not born rich. He was born in a poor family in a poor region of one of the poorest EU country in the 80's.