Maybe they believe, rightly or wrongly, that the lower cost of labour is their strongest asset in getting hired by a Western company. If their salary were rais

Maybe they believe, rightly or wrongly, that the lower cost of labour is their strongest asset in getting hired by a Western company. If their salary were raised to SV levels, sure, they might go from "well-off" to "fabulously wealthy" - but they might also get replaced with Western or Eastern European engineers. If they're not absolutely confident of their value to the company, it's not a gamble worth taking.