[refurb]

This isn't that unusual and is sometimes driven by available opportunities. If you live in a developing economy, the number of $500k equivalent jobs is likely not high, and at least for the countries I've visited, they are often roles at multi-nationals with foreigners at the top (and not all that accessible to locals).

Similarly, your potential investments for retirement savings can be quite limited. We're quite spoiled in the west to have massive stock markets with tens of thousands of stable, profitable companies. And a regulatory framework which means the chance you buy a stock and find out the entire company is a fraud is relatively low. I've heard from folks in some developing countries that they'd never put money in their own stock market - the chance of losing everything is way too high.

For developing countries, you often have a young, expanding population, and 7% GDP growth in one year wouldn't be seen as abnormal. Small businesses become a great way to get in on the growth (the market is often highly fragmented, so competition isn't that fierce) and businesses are a much more accessible way to wealth than any corporate job. The other avenue I've seen is real estate. In the SE Asian countries I've been in (the ones growing quickly), real estate is even more of a ticket to wealth than in the US. Seems like they can never build enough and in the big cities, prices aren't that different than non-coastal US ($100k+ USD), which is shocking considering the median salary is 1/10th that of the US.