For a lot of parents (and their kids) who obsess over having the very best of everything for their kids, to set them up for a successful future, it's a terrible place to raise kids.
It's the stress and the expense of trying to do/ get the best of everything and the fear of skipping out on one step that screws up the kid's life 20 years from now. When that's your mindset, everything has to be at 100 and anything less is a disappointment. And yeah, that can be pretty miserable.
I'm sure parents in other first-world countries care about their kids, but I don't get the impression those parents constantly feel like they're on a razor's-edge between success and failure.
There are a lot of stakeholders that exist to fuel that fear - test companies, prep companies, placement consultants, the colleges, the rankings services like US News, the student loan companies, etc. Even the expensive preschools feed into it - like if you don't pay $2k/mo for your 4yo to get off on the right start with their advanced curriculum, they'll already be behind in kindergarten.