Quality of life is not only income. It's also infrastructure, environment, many other things. I had only briefly visited Mumbai, but visited many big cities in India. They're extremely noisy, congested, air quality is poor. Power and Internet outages are frequent. There no parks in most Asian cities so if you're tired and want to relax in a quiet place under the trees you should drive for hours out of the city.
Exactly; quality of life isn't income (if that was the case, I wouldn't be bothering to move). It's all you say; it's also food you're used to, the people around you, family ties, the freedom to have multiple income streams without your visa blocking you, and also the lack of worry that you'll be thrown out of the country.
There is a tradeoff I am making, and weirdly India is better off in it. I will miss the good air and the incredible work environment in the States, but apart from that, Mumbai can offer everything else (not many power outages from what I know, I grew up there), and quite frankly, I like the bustle.
I also hate obtaining visas and other bureaucratic issues, worrying if you'll obtain the visa next year, not being able to speak your own language when you want to relax and hang up with the friends, etc.
I feel 90% of the quality issues can be handled by being more proactive. Stay at a community with good trees, buy only organic, drink only mineral water, etc.
Yes, every problem has a solution but a solution also has a cost. For example, you may return back to India from Western country and try to keep the same level of income, but you'll find out soon that a community with good trees is more expensive compared to the same quality of life in the West.
Asia can be cheap, but if you want the same quality of life, same level of education, etc, it actually cost more than in the West.
I currently live and work in Cambodia and education here is extremely expensive, maybe more expensive than in Singapore. But quality of the education... I don't want to describe it because I'll be probably banned if I tried to describe it.
