[rayiner]

You cannot live an equally good life in the developing world. That's a romanticization. First, the top 1% of India has purchasing power equivalent to just above the median purchasing power in the U.S.[1] "Upper middle class" in India is defined as $10-20 international dollars per day.[2]

Second, even if you are top 1% in India living like a top 25% in Indiana, your life is one of walls and enclaves. My family was rich in the developing world. We would go from our house with its high wall and iron gate into our foreign car with driver and tinted windows. We would do anything we could to avoid having to interact with the people on the street, our supposed countrymen.

The US has its enclaves, but I can get in a car and head to the relatively poor coastal town where my wife's parents grew up. I can go eat at the seafood shack by the side of the highway and consider it a treat. I can talk to the people and feel like we all live in the same country. That's living a good life.

[1] See this article, for example: http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/the-.... The couple in the article (one a consultant, another a PR executive) makes 1.8 million rupees per year, equivalent to about $29k USD. Adjusted for purchasing power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity), that's roughly equivalent to $70-80k USD. That's roughly at the top 1/3 mark of US household income, and probably not that far above median for US households where both people are working. As noted in this article, the couple is well within the top 1% of India, which starts at $1.25 million rupees per year. That level is equivalent to about the 57th percentile in the U.S.

[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-23271.... $20 PPP-adjusted dollars per day, or $7k/year is around the bottom 5% mark in the U.S. Only 4.6% of Indians have all four of these assets: a TV, a car or scooter, a landline or mobile phone, and a computer or laptop. Even people living in trailer parks in the U.S. will often have all four of these assets.

[raverbashing]

"You cannot live an equally good life in the developing world. That's a romanticization. "

Not really. You can't get as good in some aspects, but if you have the money (which is not difficult if you're being poached to work in Europe/the US) you can get beyond on some others.

Like big house with a pool and maids.

Very nice hotels/vacations for a price of an average hotel in Europe

"My family was rich in the developing world. We would go from our house with its high wall and iron gate into our foreign car with driver and tinted windows"

Spot on

[kamakazizuru]

You missed the point - I´m not talking about the US. You might be able to find solidarity with the folks in your wifes towns seafood joint in the U.S. In Germany you'd at best get curious looks and awkward questions.

Everything else you've stated is either untrue (people lived in strange walled societies) or irrelevant (PPP etc - 29k is enough for people to live a good life in India. In any case the people I referred to - the ones who would even have a chance in places like Germany etc - are well above that 1% figure even in India). I leave it to you to figure out how big 1% of 1.2 Billion is.

[rayiner]

> I´m not talking about the US. You might be able to find solidarity with the folks in your wifes towns seafood joint in the U.S. In Germany you'd at best get curious looks and awkward questions.

On the contrary, I think there is more solidarity across economic classes in most of Europe than there is in the U.S.

> Everything else you've stated is either untrue (people lived in strange walled societies)

They certainly do: http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/at-bangalores-gate....

> or irrelevant (PPP etc - 29k is enough for people to live a good life in India.

Sure, but your premise was that people didn't come to the West from places like India for the economic opportunities, because "a well qualified person can live an equally good life in the developing world as he would in Germany." A programmer in Germany lives a far better quality of life than his counterpart in India, at nearly any level of qualification.

> I leave it to you to figure out how big 1% of 1.2 Billion is.

It doesn't matter how many people are in the 1%--it still means that 99 out of 100 people live in far less comfortable circumstances. And, from my personal experience, living in communities with high income inequality sucks. I find it barely tolerable in Wilmington, DE, and that's a egalitarian paradise in comparison to anywhere in India. Life in India is not "equally good" outside the enclaves frequented by 1%-ers and Western expatriates, and being forced to stick to these enclaves is itself something that undermines quality of life.

[kamakazizuru]

well being from what would be considered that 1% of india - I can assure you I didn't live in an enclave where I didn't have access to the "real world" around me.

Getting back to the actual point - quality of life is highly subjective and the fact that there's a strong reverse brain drain happening makes it pretty obvious that there's plenty good opportunities in India right now - educated Indians dont need to go abroad for a good life. Sure there maybe differences - but after a certain level it doesn't matter anyways. The truth is - there are more people in india (also proportionally) - who have access to a decent standard of living today - than there were at any point in its history - and for most Indians thats pretty good already.

More importantly - what you misunderstood by focusing on just that one statement is that - the economic difference is just not attractive enough that companies can ignore the softer aspects. Especially for a country like Germany where the language barrier is anyways a huge disadvantage - just being economically attractive isn't going to be enough for them to draw people in. In fact - a recent article from a leading german weekly itself states that even after simplifying the visa process (if you have a degree in STEM - you can essentially just come here for 6 months and look for work no questions asked) - there hasn't been any sort of significant increase in the number of qualified people coming here. Anecdotal and personal experience, as well as the numbers clearly then point out that even for people who would maybe want better economical conditions - there's other things that matter more.

When you lose yourself in the statistics and GDP calculations - you miss the bigger picture. People are fine with living with less money in places where they feel happy compared to places where they dont feel at home, especially if the difference in the money is not percieved to be significant enough.