Just find out how much old age security Indian government provides to people above 60yrs who have not gotten from their employer or have savings. It is less than 5 dollars per month. It is about same amount that an IT guy can spent on a single meal few times per week in India. So by any standard it is not even half decent amount.

When you say this does not make it okay, it seems you simply have no clue the level of disparity most people in India are dealing with. Unless someone magically make every one earn >10K dollars per annum, 5K is lot of money in country where median income is about 600 dollars yearly.

> You're basically encouraging the exploitation of a country's labor force

Who is 'you', exactly? I assume it's some hypothetical 'you' and not me specifically, given that I've only asked a clarifying question.

> So yeah, its market wages by definition, but it doesn't make the practice OK.

No, it doesn't make the practice ok, but it's important to identify the right problem if you want to solve it. "The market affords better opportunities for these workers but they are being forced to work below market" is a different problem with different solutions than "Better opportunities do not exist because the market is very competitive".