In academia, it is quite common to discuss income, I’ve found… at least with other academics. Grad student salaries are widely discussed, as they vary from school to school and department to department, but they’re not much of an indication of an individual’s own worth. They are discussed in the sense of “What is X University offering these days?”
Even beyond grad-student salaries, post-doc salaries are frequently openly volunteered. Friends of mine who are currently applying for post-doc positions discuss what various schools, labs, grants, and institutions have offered them. Everything is within a certain range, and again, rarely based on an individual’s worth (but rather the funding situation set forth by an institution), so it is not really an uncomfortable topic of discussion.
Furthermore, I have even been around faculty who have freely volunteered their salary information. When discussing a new faculty position someone took, it would not be uncommon to hear him or her say something like, “Yeah, I was initially wary of the location, but with an offer of $XK/year and $X in start-up funds, it was hard to turn down!” Even the salaries of professors who are not present are sometimes discussed. “Man, can you believe XX?! She just got an offer from X University for $XK/year! What a lucky gal! She really deserves it, though.”
I think we all generally recognize that we are all in the same boat and getting paid less than we deserve for what we do (and less than we’d make if we sacrificed our love of basic research to go into industry), so since we’re all on the same page, it is not an uncomfortable thing to discuss.
In other worlds, however, I believe things are very different.
