Assuming all of this is true (which I believe), it exasperates me that this is yet another indicator that raising the baseline education for all should be the most important priority for any country that is seeking economic growth.
Education has nothing to do with work ethics and general attitude to your job and it's position in your life. You can be educated all the way, but without sufficient motivation your abilities and skills will be left unused - by you
why do you think it is that those that are in dire need of oppertunities blow them with the lack of work ethics while those in first world countries are willing to work long hours to get even richer? Is it really greed and/or keeping up with the joneses? At the expense of free time?
This is where education becomes a poverty issue- if you're poor, you're often not well-incentivized to make sure you kid goes to school. He can do work, or she can be married off, or a dozen other opportunities. School is seen as an investment with heavily, heavily diminishing returns. Imagine trying to explain to a person that can't read, and who has gotten by fine, why his child needs to read. "So he can be rich?" "But ah, I have my farm and he will work on that farm etc etc etc"