An old interview question was "Which would you rather be, a B747 F/O or a B737 Captain ? Airlines are looking for Captains, not career first officers when they recruit.
As someone who never intended to be a career FO when starting out, the way things are looking at my place of employment right now (aside from the fact that command opportunities are few & far between anyway), a move from the right-hand seat of my widebody to the left-hand seat of the narrowbody I'm currently most eligible for, would equate to only a fractional pay increase - one in which I can easily close the gap with a bit of overtime on my current type - & a truckload increase in workload with a corresponding deterioration in lifestyle.
Would I like to retire in the left-hand seat? Absolutely. As I said, it was never my intention to be a career FO when starting out, but I'm not that desperate to swap seats if it's at the expense of lifestyle. When I'm lying on my deathbed, I sure as hell won't be wishing I'd spent
more time flying aeroplanes. And for any of the young guns at my workplace who are desperate to climb the greasy pole at any cost, they're welcome to do so. I'm not one of them - & if management think I'm really that desperate to add another stripe to those epaulettes without providing any significant financial or lifestyle incentive to accompany it - they are sadly mistaken. I'm all for professional development & career advancement, but 'advancement' is the operative word here, as in 'moving forward' in all aspects of career fulfilment, not just rank. In the end, flying aeroplanes is just something I do - not who I am. This notion is lost on too many people.