[pbmonster]

> Salaries are usually low, issues with mental health are rampant, and it’s generally a career of high suffering. (For a white collar role)

Are you specifically referring to grad school and work in academia, or is this very location specific for people who've started their career? Because I know tons of chemists who went into industry after their Ph.D and they earn on the high side of overall STEM degrees.

Pharma, polymer producers, chemical bulk goods, petro, ... They all pay 6-figure salaries before mid-career. Of course it's not FAANG, but it's very comfortable.

So either my chemistry friends purposely got skills in grad school that transfer well into industry, or the German language region has unusually strong pharma/chemical industry.

[gradschoolfail]

I would say your last point. Chemical field is of extraordinarily high status in Germanic countries. Its like math for Francophones last century. (People learning the language for the field) Merkel? Angewandte Chemie? BASF? Not sure if that will last thanks to a lot of it based on fossil fuels.