Sorry to be blunt but you are comparing oranges to apples. A poor country PhD student/grad in the US/EU still has to live under minimum wage conditions. The fa

Sorry to be blunt but you are comparing oranges to apples. A poor country PhD student/grad in the US/EU still has to live under minimum wage conditions. The fact that the stipend might be considerable more money in their home country, does not necessarily mean that in PPP terms - phd grads are better off than say, a 'developed country' individual. If you moved to a developed country with higher living standard costs with higher salary than your home country. Even though, you earned considerably more than your home country; the money might be nothing more than minimum wage in your new place of residence. Comparing developed country humans to developing country humans's expectations just adds more fuel to the assumption that people from poor countries are happy to work for less. It applies the same for developed country humans moving from place to place and even states here in the US.