It is a cultural thing, but really it's a poor country cultural thing. There's kinda an unspoken assumption in much of the rich world that economic success isn'

It is a cultural thing, but really it's a poor country cultural thing. There's kinda an unspoken assumption in much of the rich world that economic success isn't an individual thing, but a country-wide thing. That even if you dob't find economic success, the country will keep growing, the citizens will get wealthier, and your children will be better off than you are. In countries that either don't experience economic growth (or have only found it recently e.g. India and China), you get what you describe. (Obviously this isn't a set-in-stone thing, but the general pattern holds)