Everyone is saying it’s about pay, but India is a low trust country (so far as large datasets saying as much can be trusted). Anecdotally I have heard the same from my expat friends as well.

I’m not saying pay has no influence, but saying culture has no influence makes no sense. Even if it was all about pay, wealthy Indians choosing to horde their wealth instead of distribute it (caste system, etc) is a cultural root for the pay problem. The two are so intertwined that it’s impossible to claim it’s black and white.

The current western trend of outsourcing and/or importing labor is the real source of this issue. Western businesses care only for profit, so they employ cheap labor. Western culture is currently much more low trust than it was 50 years ago, and trending worse. If anything, I think culture is the more defining factor - pay is downstream of it.