It is pretty interesting. So the company I worked for I was the only female employee and there was only 1 other American employee. Everyone else was from India or another country, but mostly India. Everyone was a full time employee though. I would talk to them and they said everyone that was good left and got jobs in America because the lifestyle here in the US was better. India is still very much a class system, so if you are not born in the right class America is a much better place for you. But what this did is really leave mostly poorly educated workers back in their home country which is why outsourcing has so many issues. I felt bad for many of them because when outsourcing began most of them lost their jobs to these people they knew didn't have the skills. We go thru a 3rd party company. Now I imagine there may be upper class workers that are highly educated and work for consulting companies. So I imagine that is what you have experienced.
On a side note, wow, being a female working with mostly Indian workers was very difficult and frustrating. It took almost a year before they respected me. I remember one of the managers saying that I should be very proud of my skills because I truly had to earn their respect and I did. I remember one time I told the one guy how to do something and he ignored me, my guy friend (only other American) came up told him the EXACT same thing I did and the guy goes, "Oh wow, that worked, thanks!". It was so frustrating knowing that you were basically ignored because you were a female.
So you can also imagine that now I am a manager of these guys and my manager is a female. It has been a huge cultural shock to many of them and I think that has also probably fed into the poor productivity because they didn't always want to listen to us. The guy I work with now listens and has learned a ton. But I imagine it won't last long as he is getting too good to be paid such low wages. So I imagine I will go thru it again in the next year at some point.
Also, some of them respected me from day one and their wives had jobs. So I sat down and talked to one of my co-workers that respected me and asked why. He said the class system played into it. The higher class you were in the more you respected woman. Since he and the other guy were in a much higher class they have no issues with woman. He came to the US for his wife to get a medical degree and ended up liking it and stayed. So sometimes the higher classes come here to get education and stay and sometimes they go back home after they get their education. He said when they had kids they may move back. It was such a fascinating culture to learn about.
