As a post-doc, I'm not sure people willing to stay in academia care that much about salary. I don't want to be paid a lot, if that was my priority, I would get a job in the industry. What I would like is a stable position where I could engage in mid- to long-term research projects, where I have less pressure and can focus on doing great things even if it means working hard without tangible results for a few years, etc. Salary-wise, I only want to have enough money to not have to worry about it and be able to focus on my research and my life. In many places in the world, $50k/year is largely enough for that.
I also agree with this, but once you get to a certain age and start having a family (or start thinking about having one) then just saying money doesn't matter does not cut it anymore.
In my opinion good postdocs are massively underpaid. This has an big effect as You could live without having a long term project if you had the savings to survive between positions.
I totally agree with your first point. But I stand by my case. I didn't say "money doesn't matter", I said "I want to have enough, rather than as much as possible". $50k/year means that you get something like 3000€/month. Early career researcher with faculty position are paid less than that in France, and it lasts years and years before you get to this salary level. And is you don't get a full professor or senior researcher position, you won't ever go much higher. A lot of people, if not most people, have children while earning less than 3000€/month and have no money problems.
On your second point, the problem is that even if you have enough money to live between temporary positions, not being able to get a position at some point is a huge red flag in your application file, and this kind of gap are often fatals in competitive recruitment process, as the people in charge of the recruitment are looking for ways to discard applicants.
I'm really not saying you are wrong as I don't think so, my point is to say that the problem you highlight (salary level) is not the one that needs to be addressed to "repair the system".
I don't want to be paid a lot, if that was my priority, I would get a job in the industry. What I would like is a stable position where I could engage in mid- to long-term research projects, where I have less pressure
Sure but there's cash-equivalent value in that too. Ask anyone in any volatile industry in the private sector, the cash premium is there because your company no matter how well established, might not even exist in a year.
Of course I understand that, that's why I specified I'm talking about "people willing to stay in academia" (which is in my understanding the main focus of the linked story). I'm hoping that universities and government labs are not volatile ;).
