Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Expat "longevity" - how long will you stay?

Taking data from a recent HBSC survey, which presents a whole host of interesting information regarding the top expat locations, we find some surprising facts.

First let us consider longevity, or how long an average expat lives in a particular country or area of the world. We find that Europe overall sees the most long term expats, with up to 80% of them living in Europe for more than three years. This is hardly surprising in itself, it only becomes interesting when correlated with the next fact.

Almost every European country scored very low in the overall scores, most displayed a relatively high cost of living and low standards of lifestyle based upon income, almost all of them were criticised for their social and economic environment.

So the real question is why are so many people so keen to stay in these countries, even though the survey results would seem to suggest that they are the least attractive expat options to be found? Could it be that the survey neglected to factor location into the equation? European expats who relocated to another European country have the huge advantage of easy access to their home nation, something the survey seems to overlook...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It would be interesting if they had a breakdown of expat experiences by distance. Do expats further away from home come back sooner? As you said, easy access to home can make it less difficult to move away.