What makes indians so successful in the west ? And reversely, why is there still such a big proportion of India’s population that lives in poverty ?
Because the best ones in their fields usually leave for the west. This doesn’t mean every indian is good. It just shows the brain drain
Does Germany (citizens) include the said foreigners as they are citizens too?
Do you have data for the income by nationality for nationalities making less than average. It is a bit strange to see the “all foreigners” group make less money than each of the individual foreigners listed
Indians are also the highest earning immigrant group in the US. Also out earning the native born population.
Since I am a personality-focused psychologist (that’s my hammer, so everything looks like such a nail!), I would see what personality factors affect income. So just for fun, I’m going to do an unnecessary deconstruction of common sense.
One obvious interpretation is that moving to and working in any other country requires something of the individual personality that also makes the person more productive. The following are conservative estimates of big-5 personality traits on earnings.
* Openness to experience: +~1.9% per SD.
* Conscientiousness: +~1.6% per SD.
* Extraversion: +~0.3% per SD.
* Agreeableness: −~1.7% per SD.
* Neuroticism: −~1.8% per SD.
So if a person is +/- 2xSD in the “helpful” direction for each personality trait, personality would explain a 14.6% increase in earnings for these personality profiles.
Now we just need to figure out how much “Openness to experience,” “emotional stability,” “disagreeableness,” and “conscientiousness” **cause** people to move to other countries. If the causality for this is high, with a low per capita emigration rate (making this profile highly specific to emigration), we could say the following: People who are open to new experiences, work hard, are emotionally stable, and prioritize their own needs and wants make up a large proportion of emigrants. This, in turn, makes them outliers both in immigration rates and earnings potential, based solely on personality traits. So the very same personality that makes them prone to move makes them better earners.
Note, the math COULD fit, but I don’t know of any sources for emigration rate versus personality traits. But I would be surprised if this isn’t a huge part of the trend shown in the graph. In other words, personality alone could in theory explain this.
If one wanted to spice it up, one could also include the role of IQ in both immigration and earning. But that’s a minefield to talk about…
Just a fun thought experiment on my part though. Don’t take it too seriously.
Indians in Germany contribute the most to the income taxes collected, as a result in fact, the same breakdown. This data needs some details regarding job types as well.
This graph isn’t showing the whole picture (shocking I know). The immigrants are the top % of their type and would be the top no matter where they are in the world. It’d be interesting, and probably more appropriate to compare their incomes to those of Germans emigrants who are also more likely the top %s rather than including all those in the lower wage sectors.
Is there a single Western country where the native citizens are wealthier than the foreigners?
Would have been nice to also include those that earn less than the median german. Just looking at the median german wage and then the median foreigner wage under it doesnt bode well
This is misleading. To hire most foreigners you need to pay a certain level of salary. That rises the median
Median monthly income is just false.
Is Median monthly income of the subgroup of employees who earn enough to have to pay for social benefits.
Also only shares the data for the presented nationalities.
Really weird selection of data points to prove the author’s point.
What about Polish, Balkans?
Austria is also intersting but it checks out, the disposable median income in Austria is generally higher than in Germany by a good 20%, so all the “average” jobs pay better in Austria than Germany, while the only places where Germany has better pay are very niche and really high paying jobs (CEO’s etc) due to a much bigger market, so most Austrians that work in Germany work in these high paying jobs, as all the “average” jobs would be better paying in Austria.
There’s an interesting study I heard about a while which apparently said the reason immigrants do better is because they’re more willing to move for work.
Basically there’s a bunch of Germans trapped in backwards forgotten towns who don’t want to leave their home which drag down the average whereas immigrants don’t really care and will go where the best opportunities are.
Apparently that effect is enough to explain all their advantage over natives.
I feel petty being irritated that Ireland/UK were lumped together
lol Indians make more than the native people in so many countries and yet have to face racism.
They are not stealing your jobs, they’re doing jobs you can’t and that’s why your capitalist system pays them more than you, and your defense mechanism to this is racism lol.
Once that I get a MF Median instead of AVG, they didn’t specify if gross or net…
FML…
There are around 250 – 280K Indians living in Germany. A very small number.
Almost certainly cherry picked for IT/Tech jobs as compared to the entire country which is a much lower average.
Similar trend in the US
This chart was a right winger’s wet dream when it was released by media in this form. “They’re taking our jerbs!”, this kind of stuff.
First off, to get a blue card visum, there are minimum salary requirements. For tech jobs just under 5k Euros, so you won’t find many Indians working for less – they just won’t be here.
Most important: 16% of Germans work in the low income sector (3% at minimum wage level) and there’s also part-time workers. These 6 millions outweigh the foreign workers sector by so much that it drags the average down to the second lowest rank in this chart.
But also important is that chart actually continues for a long stretch after it’s cut off here. Even on average, Germans still earn more than most other nationalities in the country.
5k isn’t an outrageous salary either. I got 6k right after finishing an engineering degree, no negotiation, first offer accepted.
If anything, this chart is misleading and in its abbreviated form, political.
Where are the nationalities below Germans, OP? What did you do with the inconvenient data?
Germany having “(citizens)” after it is extremely confusing. 1) “Citizen” is not a nationality, 2) Obviously most of the other people in other categories are also citizens, unless you cherrypicked it somehow so they aren’t? Or… huh? What?
The most important problem of all: you VERY obviously had a hundred countries of nationalities that earn less than Germans and clearly didn’t show them, since “all foreigners” is lower than Germans, and couldn’t have gotten there without way more data below germany than above it.
What are British folks doing in Germany! It’s usually Germans who go to English speaking countries not the other way around!
If the data are available, I’d be interested to see if DE workers in AT also outearn the citizen population.
Yup figures you can’t connect the dots. Too much of an abstract leap for you.
![Median monthly income by nationality(immigrant group) in Germany [OC]](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/6lu1xjarguzf1-1920x1024.jpeg)
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Source: https://www.iwkoeln.de/studien/axel-pluennecke-inder-nordeuropaeer-und-oesterreicher-verdienen-in-deutschland-am-meisten.html
Made using matplotlib .
What makes indians so successful in the west ? And reversely, why is there still such a big proportion of India’s population that lives in poverty ?
Because the best ones in their fields usually leave for the west. This doesn’t mean every indian is good. It just shows the brain drain
Does Germany (citizens) include the said foreigners as they are citizens too?
Do you have data for the income by nationality for nationalities making less than average. It is a bit strange to see the “all foreigners” group make less money than each of the individual foreigners listed
Indians are also the highest earning immigrant group in the US. Also out earning the native born population.
Since I am a personality-focused psychologist (that’s my hammer, so everything looks like such a nail!), I would see what personality factors affect income. So just for fun, I’m going to do an unnecessary deconstruction of common sense.
One obvious interpretation is that moving to and working in any other country requires something of the individual personality that also makes the person more productive. The following are conservative estimates of big-5 personality traits on earnings.
* Openness to experience: +~1.9% per SD.
* Conscientiousness: +~1.6% per SD.
* Extraversion: +~0.3% per SD.
* Agreeableness: −~1.7% per SD.
* Neuroticism: −~1.8% per SD.
So if a person is +/- 2xSD in the “helpful” direction for each personality trait, personality would explain a 14.6% increase in earnings for these personality profiles.
Now we just need to figure out how much “Openness to experience,” “emotional stability,” “disagreeableness,” and “conscientiousness” **cause** people to move to other countries. If the causality for this is high, with a low per capita emigration rate (making this profile highly specific to emigration), we could say the following: People who are open to new experiences, work hard, are emotionally stable, and prioritize their own needs and wants make up a large proportion of emigrants. This, in turn, makes them outliers both in immigration rates and earnings potential, based solely on personality traits. So the very same personality that makes them prone to move makes them better earners.
Note, the math COULD fit, but I don’t know of any sources for emigration rate versus personality traits. But I would be surprised if this isn’t a huge part of the trend shown in the graph. In other words, personality alone could in theory explain this.
If one wanted to spice it up, one could also include the role of IQ in both immigration and earning. But that’s a minefield to talk about…
Just a fun thought experiment on my part though. Don’t take it too seriously.
Indians in Germany contribute the most to the income taxes collected, as a result in fact, the same breakdown. This data needs some details regarding job types as well.
[Tax](https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/arbeitsmarkt-inder-in-deutschland-gehoeren-zu-den-top-verdienern/100004057.html)
This graph isn’t showing the whole picture (shocking I know). The immigrants are the top % of their type and would be the top no matter where they are in the world. It’d be interesting, and probably more appropriate to compare their incomes to those of Germans emigrants who are also more likely the top %s rather than including all those in the lower wage sectors.
Is there a single Western country where the native citizens are wealthier than the foreigners?
Would have been nice to also include those that earn less than the median german. Just looking at the median german wage and then the median foreigner wage under it doesnt bode well
This is misleading. To hire most foreigners you need to pay a certain level of salary. That rises the median
Median monthly income is just false.
Is Median monthly income of the subgroup of employees who earn enough to have to pay for social benefits.
Also only shares the data for the presented nationalities.
Really weird selection of data points to prove the author’s point.
What about Polish, Balkans?
Austria is also intersting but it checks out, the disposable median income in Austria is generally higher than in Germany by a good 20%, so all the “average” jobs pay better in Austria than Germany, while the only places where Germany has better pay are very niche and really high paying jobs (CEO’s etc) due to a much bigger market, so most Austrians that work in Germany work in these high paying jobs, as all the “average” jobs would be better paying in Austria.
There’s an interesting study I heard about a while which apparently said the reason immigrants do better is because they’re more willing to move for work.
Basically there’s a bunch of Germans trapped in backwards forgotten towns who don’t want to leave their home which drag down the average whereas immigrants don’t really care and will go where the best opportunities are.
Apparently that effect is enough to explain all their advantage over natives.
I feel petty being irritated that Ireland/UK were lumped together
lol Indians make more than the native people in so many countries and yet have to face racism.
They are not stealing your jobs, they’re doing jobs you can’t and that’s why your capitalist system pays them more than you, and your defense mechanism to this is racism lol.
Once that I get a MF Median instead of AVG, they didn’t specify if gross or net…
FML…
There are around 250 – 280K Indians living in Germany. A very small number.
Almost certainly cherry picked for IT/Tech jobs as compared to the entire country which is a much lower average.
Similar trend in the US
This chart was a right winger’s wet dream when it was released by media in this form. “They’re taking our jerbs!”, this kind of stuff.
First off, to get a blue card visum, there are minimum salary requirements. For tech jobs just under 5k Euros, so you won’t find many Indians working for less – they just won’t be here.
Most important: 16% of Germans work in the low income sector (3% at minimum wage level) and there’s also part-time workers. These 6 millions outweigh the foreign workers sector by so much that it drags the average down to the second lowest rank in this chart.
But also important is that chart actually continues for a long stretch after it’s cut off here. Even on average, Germans still earn more than most other nationalities in the country.
5k isn’t an outrageous salary either. I got 6k right after finishing an engineering degree, no negotiation, first offer accepted.
If anything, this chart is misleading and in its abbreviated form, political.
Where are the nationalities below Germans, OP? What did you do with the inconvenient data?
Germany having “(citizens)” after it is extremely confusing. 1) “Citizen” is not a nationality, 2) Obviously most of the other people in other categories are also citizens, unless you cherrypicked it somehow so they aren’t? Or… huh? What?
The most important problem of all: you VERY obviously had a hundred countries of nationalities that earn less than Germans and clearly didn’t show them, since “all foreigners” is lower than Germans, and couldn’t have gotten there without way more data below germany than above it.
What are British folks doing in Germany! It’s usually Germans who go to English speaking countries not the other way around!
If the data are available, I’d be interested to see if DE workers in AT also outearn the citizen population.
Yup figures you can’t connect the dots. Too much of an abstract leap for you.
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