I'm an INFP and I've written about this topic before. I agree that alot of the Low INFP Income issue can be explained by the generally non-materialistic temperament of the INFP, and also the American tendency to punish and malign Introversion and praise Extroversion (look at the $10,000 income gap), which has its own origins story. But there is a third huge factor causing this that almost never gets mentioned: INFPs probably more than any other type have been devastated by changes in the religious terrain of the Western World over the last 500 years.
Basically my thesis is that in predominately Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic countries, a very disproportionate amount of the clergy and even moreso, the iconography work in these churches, is done by INFPs, and that's how they made a living. Orthodox and Catholic churches are adorned lavishly with paintings of (Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Saints and angels) called Icons, gorgeous visual creations, that faithful believers venerate as an act of worship; someone has to create these illustrations and the illustrators do get paid for it, you can be sure of that. What's changed since then is: the Protestant Reformation, among other things, declared the veneration of icons as "idolatry" and removed them all the churches, sometimes violently so, and the culture of America has been staunchly Protestant ever since Europeans started arriving here en masse, the other thing is the colossal growth of irreligiosity as time has passed, first in Western Europe and also in the Anglosphere nations generally. So what you have is a group of would-be icon painters who have been reduced to the level of "starving artists" because of Protestants declared the visual arts have no place in religion, and would be-bishops, priests, deacons etc. who have far fewer people to serve because their would-be flocks have left the church for various reasons and much of society has declared God irrelevant.
I should add that thankfully I think the further you get away from the English-speaking and Protestant world, the more this problem disappears. Russia is a country that seems to value its INFPs much more than America does; it seeems to value Introverts in general much more.
Monadnock (not verified)says...
I'm an INFP and I've written about this topic before. I agree that alot of the Low INFP Income issue can be explained by the generally non-materialistic temperament of the INFP, and also the American tendency to punish and malign Introversion and praise Extroversion (look at the $10,000 income gap), which has its own origins story. But there is a third huge factor causing this that almost never gets mentioned: INFPs probably more than any other type have been devastated by changes in the religious terrain of the Western World over the last 500 years.
Basically my thesis is that in predominately Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic countries, a very disproportionate amount of the clergy and even moreso, the iconography work in these churches, is done by INFPs, and that's how they made a living. Orthodox and Catholic churches are adorned lavishly with paintings of (Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Saints and angels) called Icons, gorgeous visual creations, that faithful believers venerate as an act of worship; someone has to create these illustrations and the illustrators do get paid for it, you can be sure of that. What's changed since then is: the Protestant Reformation, among other things, declared the veneration of icons as "idolatry" and removed them all the churches, sometimes violently so, and the culture of America has been staunchly Protestant ever since Europeans started arriving here en masse, the other thing is the colossal growth of irreligiosity as time has passed, first in Western Europe and also in the Anglosphere nations generally. So what you have is a group of would-be icon painters who have been reduced to the level of "starving artists" because of Protestants declared the visual arts have no place in religion, and would be-bishops, priests, deacons etc. who have far fewer people to serve because their would-be flocks have left the church for various reasons and much of society has declared God irrelevant.
I should add that thankfully I think the further you get away from the English-speaking and Protestant world, the more this problem disappears. Russia is a country that seems to value its INFPs much more than America does; it seeems to value Introverts in general much more.