But I had a very interesting situation once. I asked one of my clients if it's ok for him, if I move to Croatia for some time, he tried to convince me that it's his right to pay less since I don't need as much as in Austria.
So I assume that he basically thought: "you don't need that money since everything else is cheaper and you earn more than the average person in Croatia"
I mean if you think about it, the average salary in Romania is like 450 Euro's ? Now imagine a dev living in Romania with 4k Euro's each month, working for a company in Germany.
I'm not saying that they are right, all I'm saying is that I understand their thinking process ( even if it's totally BS )
They next issues: probably taxes, there is a reason why we got hourly rates like 90/hour, our taxes are killer, if you have good rates, you can be sure that you will lose 50% on taxes, while in other countries it's not like that.
Compared to Romania ( low flat rate 16% tax ), this is insane[0].
Long story short, they try to figure out the cost of living and based on that, that's what you get.
[0] https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/work/taxes/income-taxe...