> Also, enticing Europeans to move to the US is exceedingly easy. You ask, “do you want to 4X your current salary with 20% less taxes?” The answer is usually yes.
I don't really understand why people make claims like that. To me it's obvious that the vast majority of people are not particularly motivated by money. They would like to have more money, but once they have reached the standard of living common in developed countries, they are not willing to make the kind of life choices that would give them more money.
Finnish nurses are a good example. They would have a better standard of living in Norway. As Finnish citizens, they have a subjective right to live and work there, even stronger than in the EU. The language would be easy to learn. The culture and the society are very similar. And it's close to Finland, making it easy to visit your friends and family any time. But few nurses actually move there, because most people need better reasons than money for moving to another country.
This is ironic since I actually live in Finland, and know exactly how wrong your comment is.
1. Finnish nurses need to learn to speak Norwegian to work there (nursing is not tech, you can't get by speaking english with your 75 year old patients).
2. Finnish and Norwegian are not at all related linguistically. Also, english fluency in the Nordics (and Europe in general) is grossly overstated by Americans whos only experience of Europe was spending a few months in a capital city with international students doing an exchange at Uni. English fluency declines dramatically among the general population each kilometer you move outside the capital and away from workers at international companies (same can be said for fluency decline by old age).
3. Nurses make only marginally more in Norway than they do in Finland, and when adjusting for cost of living (which is higher in Norway), depending on where you live you could make less. Best case you're looking at an extra 15,000 euro per year (with high taxes on that extra amount). Not an extra 300,000 per year with dramatically lower taxes like a talented engineer moving to the US would get. One is an actual opportunity to build financial independence. The other is a few bucks to piss away on a slightly nicer holiday.
4. Nurses in Finland are predominantly female (92%), and females are less likely than males to move countries for a job (not by a ton, but relevant for this analysis).
Even considering (4), I can assure you with 100% certainty, that if there were no language barrier and a nurse in Norway could make 350,000 euros per year you would see Finnish nurses making the move en masse. Finnish women are not stupid.
Nurse salaries have been a major talking point for decades. While only a small fraction of nurses move to Norway, it's still enough people that it gets mentioned in the news once in a while. Especially around elections.
The official languages of Finland are Finnish and Swedish. If you speak one as a native language, you must learn the other. If you work as a nurse in Finland, it's quite likely that you have to use Swedish at work. At least occasionally. If you are comfortable doing that, learning Norwegian is not such a big deal.
I studied computer science and eventually ended up in the US. And I'm still here after a surprisingly long time. Based on what I have personally seen, Finns who move to the US for work are less likely to stay than those who move to Sweden, UK, or Switzerland. The culture is just too different. And if you have kids, the salaries are not actually that high. The consensus seems to be that for those with kids, 300k in the US is worth about as much as 100k in Finland. At least in the areas where immigrants with nominally high salaries are likely to live.
I have lived in both countries, and 300K in the US goes much further than 100k in Finland (we're talking FIRE money vs. paycheck-to-paycheck living). The people saying this are likely Nokia transfers who only have experience living in Silicon Valley.
300K as a family in even midwestern US cities (far cheaper than the coasts) is not crazy for a college educated couple. My US friends and entire extended family earns roughly 100-150Kish per year living in the US midwest (so roughly 300k household income per couple, yet at much lower tax rates).
On this salary they afford childcare, houses 2-3X the size of the average Finnish house in Metro-Helsinki (not kidding), expensive vacations, two new cars, fantastic health insurance via employer, and maxing out retirement accounts -- which has MASSIVE benefits over the Finnish pension system where the government takes control of your money and invests it in crap 0% yielding bonds. I personally know many US couples who are liquid millionaires already by their mid 40s just from working normal jobs w/ 401ks, and much of this is tax free wealth that importantly, they have full control over.
In Espoo/Helsinki/Vantaa, 100k household income gets your family a tiny 3-bed row house, one used Passat, a trip to the canary islands, and yes government childcare/healthcare. The main difference though, the Finnish family making 100k never accrues any actual wealth or sizable investment assets like stocks (And even if they did, government eats 20% more than in the US with higher cap gains tax). They will never reach financial independence. They will be begging the future austerity government for permission to retire at 70 (age keeps going up, so not unlikely). Hopefully the economy doesn't keep stagnating and the population doesn't keep declining, because it's not even really their money, it can easily be squandered by the collective.
We are talking about immigrants, not US citizens. If you come to the US in the normal H-1B to green card pipeline, your employer decides where you are allowed to live. Which is usually in an area with very expensive housing.
You have more options once you get a green card. But with the initial uncertainty and delays in getting H-1B, the employer choosing not to sponsor a green card immediately, and the years of bureaucracy for getting the green card, that can easily be a decade after the initial offer. Which is plenty for people who don't particularly like the American culture to decide to go to somewhere with lower salaries, lower costs, and more freedom to make your own choices.
You are comparing the most expensive area in Finland to areas you consider cheap in the US. But from a Finnish immigrant's perspective, the reasonable comparison would be the opposite. You are forced to live in an expensive area in the US, but if you return to Finland, you can choose a cheaper city. €100k/year would be close to the median for a family with kids in Helsinki but a pretty good income in other cities.
> To me it's obvious that the vast majority of people are not particularly motivated by money.
Are you sure we are living in the same world?
Also the example you provide is not pertinent. There is a reason why Software devs move the most. There are barriers for other professions. It is not easy to move as a doctor, lawyer, civil servant, etc...
Software developers are often the ones who move back. When you can have good enough standard of living anywhere, you may start paying attention on where you actually want to live.
The best predictor for moving permanently to another country for work seems to be a PhD. Jobs are scarce in the academia. And even if you are in the industry, you are probably the kind of person looking for the most interesting jobs.
I don't really understand why people make claims like that. To me it's obvious that the vast majority of people are not particularly motivated by money. They would like to have more money, but once they have reached the standard of living common in developed countries, they are not willing to make the kind of life choices that would give them more money.
Finnish nurses are a good example. They would have a better standard of living in Norway. As Finnish citizens, they have a subjective right to live and work there, even stronger than in the EU. The language would be easy to learn. The culture and the society are very similar. And it's close to Finland, making it easy to visit your friends and family any time. But few nurses actually move there, because most people need better reasons than money for moving to another country.