[em-bee]

the problem with cost of living averages is that they don't take into account different living standards.

cost of living is largely driven by cost of property and rent. places with lower living standards are much cheaper than others. even within the same city. if the majority of people in a city accept those lower standards then the average goes down. But if you want to have the same nice apartment that that your colleagues in more expensive cities afford then your cost goes up.

this is especially noticeable in large asian cities where the majority of people live in cheaper housing than what a european standard would consider acceptable.

for example the salaries gitlab offers for china make it hard for any expat to work for them because they don't take this into account:

https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation...

(i am picking out gitlab because they have this nice calculators that makes their pay very transparent)