Part 2: Comparing Income and GDP Across Countries in US Dollars is Detached from Reality
In the previous post of this series, I wrote about how rapid improvements in the living standards of the upper-middle and middle class in India have changed how they view USA and the West in general. My central point was that changes in living standards and general quality of life are much more obvious if you look at changing patterns of consumption for goods and services rather than gross reported income in measured in USD or other western currencies. In other words, commonly held assumptions about income (and spending) in USD having a global correlation with quality of life has not been true for over a decade or two by now.
However, the lack of a strong correlation between improvements in quality of life for upper-middle and middle class in India and income, as measured in USD, is just one example of a much larger and global phenomenon. The rest of this post will talk about how that change has affected formerly communist east-European countries.. from the Czech Republic to Russia. So let me begin with an observation that led me to it. See.. at that time, USA was the destination of choice for people from formerly communist east-European countries. Many people from those countries (academics and engineers to criminals and pretty women) wanted to move to USA or somewhere else in the West. Indeed, many of those who came over prior to 2002 ended up staying for good. But then something started to change and that flow decreased to a trickle.
I first noticed this change because of a sharp and persistent drop in the number of academics and scientists from those countries who were interested in moving to USA starting around 2002. Prior to that, a majority of academics and scientists from those countries who were visiting the USA frequently expressed a strong interest in moving there for good- and many followed up on it. However by 2002-2003 there was a sharp and persistent drop in their degree of interest in moving west. Curiously, there was no significant change in the numbers of those who visited USA (from those countries) for shorter periods. So I started inquiring about the reasons behind this rather abrupt change. Curiously, I kept on getting different versions of the same answer.
Basically, they all told me that the differences in quality of life and living standards between those countries and USA had shrunk down to a point where it was simply not worth immigrating to USA unless there was a very specific reason to make that move. I was initially puzzled by this explanation since they were making significantly less in those countries- as measured in USD. However, some internet research revealed that the cost of many goods and services in those countries was significantly lower than their equivalents in USA- when priced in USD. The difference in cost (as measured in USD) was most obvious in housing, education, food and healthcare. Furthermore, the quality of these goods and services was identical to their equivalents in USA.
It also became clear that a person with a reasonable job in those countries could actually live a far more stable and financially secure lifestyle than somebody in USA- even prior to 2008. It was this realization which first led me to question the idea of comparing incomes across countries in USD or other western currencies. The increasing lack of interest by people from those countries in moving to USA and the rest of the West on a long-term basis was also obvious in other ways. Some of you might recall that the phenomenon of “mail order bride” and other similar marriage arrangements by women from those countries was a well-known trope in popular culture during the 1990s and early 2000s. Today, you don't hear much about that sort of stuff anymore. Similarly, rich people from those countries no longer see USA as a highly regarded tourist destination.
So why did this change occur and why was it so fast? Well.. in my opinion, many formerly communist east-European countries already had most of the ingredients (levels of education, infrastructure, natural resources) necessary to provide a high standard of living for their people. Once the burden of ideological top-down control on them was lifted after 1989, it took most of those countries a decade or so to catch up with the west- as far as actual quality of life was concerned. Widespread travel and ubiquitous internet access also showed a lot of them that difference in quality of life in USA vs their countries was simply not enough to make moving to the former worth it.
Today, only people from some the poorest countries and regions in eastern-Europe still harbor any worthwhile interest in moving to the USA- and even that is changing. To summarize, many formerly communist east-European countries are now good examples of places with a high standard of living but with supposedly lower income- as measured in USD. In the upcoming post of this series, I will write about how the living standard in east-Asian countries is also now no longer connected to average local income as measured in USD.
What do you think? Comments?