Belarus, Ukraine, Russia have low taxation for the salaries in IT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus_High_Technologies_Park) To have your own 2-3 room flat in Minsk (Capital) by the age of 35 is pretty common for Belarusian programmers and basically unheard in the West. So yes, I can argue that programmers can have higher standards of life at home than your typical "tech hub" like London, Munchen or Dublin.