Not true, many of those middle to upper strata parents sell significant assets to send their kids abroad. Middle and upper class is much different in India than the USA

There’s an unwritten expectation for the kids to reciprocate.

Definitely untrue. Like everywhere else it's a wide spectrum. You'd be surprised how many Indians come to the US from modest means. Parents sunk their savings into educating their kids and sending them abroad. It is not uncommon for these parents to now rely on their foreign resident children.

A lot of Indians (and I am sure it's true for other nationalities) owe a lot to the Tech industry for absolutely transforming their standard of living in the last 1-2 generations. Tech was also remarkably egalitarian since anyone with the inclination could learn it with a relatively modest investment in a computer or even unimpeded access to a computer at school.

I wonder if future generations will see the same lifestyle transformative effect. Or perhaps the new bar is access to an H100 GPU.

The Indians who come for undergrad are different from those who come here for grad school. Undergrads are rich, grad students less so.

A significant section of my grad school class sends around ~$1000/ month back home.

Also, the upper-middle rung of Indian society (top 5 - top 15%) is still pretty poor by western standards.

That depends. Indian parents, even from the upper middle class don’t always save enough for retirement. They’re fine while they work but a significant number rely on their kids once they retire (with the exception of pensioners and entrepreneurs).

I would say a good 80% of Indian immigrants I know send money back to their parents every month.

You'd be surpised.