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Comment by Roritharr | Hacker News Reader

I think in Germany a large part why Salaries are secret is because most people don't want to think about it. https://www.quora.com/Why-is-everything-so-cheap-in-Germany

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I cannot find anything supporting your argument under that link. Maybe add some quotes?

Also Norwegians probably do not have to look up their colleagues salaries, if they do not want to.

I would definitely like to know at least the general distribution.

It's just a guess that there is a connection between the difference of perceived wealth and actual wealth of a countries citizens and the secrecy around salaries.

If you earn right the median income , but think the actual median is much higher, you tend to not want to talk about your income because you are of low status, compared to everyone else who you expect to earn more.

Glassdoor?

Many unions in Norway in the private sector (if not most) generate statistics based on information from their members regarding salary, education, experience and so on, so for me as a developer/sysop there really is no need to check what my colleagues are paid. I work at a place where everyone has a different background, so I don't expect the same pay for everyone. But I expect that I'm paid similar to others with the same responsibility, tasks, background, etc within the industry and geographical area.

I find the linked quora answer pretty confusing. It claims Germans are "taxed to death", but argues from the amount of poverty as defined relative to the median income. This doesn't say anything about overall wealth, but says a lot about income disparity. The poor are by definition not "most people".

I think it's somewhat amusing that I grew up with my single mother making less than the cited poverty threshold for one person, but still had a pretty good life without ever being short of money. She's been putting quite a lot aside for her retirement, too. I guess that goes to show how expectations can differ.

Did she own her own house?

No, we lived in social housing. Homeownership is generally much rarer in Germany than other countries (see also the Quora answer), but between social housing and rent controls, renting was quite affordable.

I think it's more common because employers succeeded in telling employees to not talk about how much they earn. I heard it several times that people got bonuses under the condition to net tell colleagues about it. This puts employees in a situation where also they can loose through wage transparency.

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