Yes, I think engineers tend to undervalue themselves when compared to many other professionals such as lawyers, traders and financiers.
Perhaps it is because our work puts us is a position where we aren't able to practice our people skills (and negotiation skills) and we don't have good instincts when it comes to how the free market works (we get boxed in and caught up in our work and forget about the financial realities of life).
When you think about the enormous value which engineers have created over the past 50 years and you compare that to who actually benefited the most from that value (in terms of wealth accumulation) - The people who benefited the most are business people, lawyers and financiers.
Every field of industry has been significantly enhanced by engineers... Heck, even medicine would still be voodoo pseudo-science if it wasn't for all the awesome tools created by engineers... Yet in spite of talent shortages, the education/intelligence barrier, the extreme amount of after-work hours required; we barely get paid more than an Australian construction worker.
It comes down to the fact that we don't stand up for ourselves - And we should.
Not saying you're wrong, but I think it probably also has a lot to do with the fact that engineers, by training and often by personality, tend toward being "rational" in their worldview, which basically means looking for "reasons" for things, and wanting "reason" to prevail. Such a person would tend to set the value of his own labor at some rationally-supportable level, and would have a hard time coming up with a rational reason why he (or anyone else) needs or deserves to be paid more than that.
Whereas other types of people who are quicker to embrace "irrational" ideas of what they're worth, are more likely to ask for and therefore receive irrationally high salaries.
The reason it's hard to come up with a rational reason for a particular pay rate, is because no such reason exists in the real world. You can talk in terms of being paid proportionately for value created, but that's just an attempt to apply reason where it doesn't actually govern. Plenty of people are underpaid compared to the value they create, for no good reason: teachers, women, manufacturing workers, foreign sweatshop workers, open-sourcers - though willingly in the latter case.
What governs in setting labor prices is not reason, but all the gloriously irrational behavior of any and every marketplace, where people we denigrate as stupid idiots are basically like "oh look, shiny things." Well guess what, those shiny things - objects of desire - are worth a lot, even if rationally speaking they are crap. Never underestimate the Shiny Factor.
That's how someone ends up paid more for the same work for example. Like when a person from outside gets hired on at a higher rate for the same job being done for less by someone already in-house. The "reason" is simply that the new guy happened to be an "object of desire" (not currently working for the firm) which enhanced his Shiny Factor. As opposed to someone already on the payroll, dependably doing exactly the same thing - that guy, by his very dependability, actually has a lower Shiny Factor. To raise it, he needs to create a real threat of his leaving, and/or actually leave for somewhere else, and maybe come back.
Rationality, is or should be, by definition, pursuing actions that are in your own self interest.
Maybe engineers, if they had the knowledge that they could increase their salary by inflating their self worth in the eyes others, would do so. But in that case the problem is one of knowledge, not of rationality. Or perhaps engineers are more ethical. But in that case the problem is one of values, and not of rationality.
If someone needs to justify their pay by more rigorous means at their own expense, should they really be viewed as rational? Compare that question to the following one. Should someone with OCPD (obsessive compulsive personality disorder), that is conscientiousness and perfectionist to a fault be seen as more adept?
Business people and financiers exist to extract value from the people doing the actual work. That is the entire purpose of the position. They literally sit around most days devising new or better ways of extracting more value.
We should, therefore, not be surprised when the structure of organizations in their control reflect that reality.
Perhaps it is because our work puts us is a position where we aren't able to practice our people skills (and negotiation skills) and we don't have good instincts when it comes to how the free market works (we get boxed in and caught up in our work and forget about the financial realities of life).
When you think about the enormous value which engineers have created over the past 50 years and you compare that to who actually benefited the most from that value (in terms of wealth accumulation) - The people who benefited the most are business people, lawyers and financiers.
Every field of industry has been significantly enhanced by engineers... Heck, even medicine would still be voodoo pseudo-science if it wasn't for all the awesome tools created by engineers... Yet in spite of talent shortages, the education/intelligence barrier, the extreme amount of after-work hours required; we barely get paid more than an Australian construction worker.
It comes down to the fact that we don't stand up for ourselves - And we should.