Planet Berkley is a good comparison. And not, I think, unintentional. I've never read the books as in any way attempting to portray Beta Colony as a true paradise. A better place for many, than Barrayar -- but not without its idiocies and prejudices and horrors.

To wit, the methods of forcible therapy that Cordelia escapes. That little notion of post facto consent being considered acceptable for drugging people against their will to obtain purer observational data. Well, of course you can obtain consent if you keep at that sort of therapy...