united states - Is the status of postdocs perceived differently in western Europe vs. North-America?

In a footnote at this answer by on leaving a postdoc early, user Luke Mathieson writes:

A postdoc in the US has lower status that it does in Europe/Australia/New Zealand/...,

I'm aware that postdocs in the USA typically have lower pay than in (say) Sweden or The Netherlands (I did not look into other countries). I don't know if pay is quite proportional to status. In the way postdocs are perceived by others—undergraduates, graduate students, pre-tenure academics, tenured professors—is there a difference in postdoc status in different parts of the world?

I realise this question is somewhat subjective, so I'm looking for either testimonies based on people who have worked as or with postdocs in both western Europe and North America, or in-depth articles exploring this issue.