[r00fus]

Timezone and management capabilities of your organization could have been an issue in why the pay was so different.

Especially for startups, managing payroll in another country could be challenging. Also the latency on communications for daylight working hours could be bad - back and forth discussions leading to swift actions are hamper by a 9+hr timezone difference.

[vultour]

They don't need to manage payroll in another country. Everybody working overseas does so as a contractor which means it's just another expense for the employer.