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Quality of a life abroad

Travel & Tourism

01/12/2007Quality of a life abroad

The results of Expatica's poll on the quality of life readers experience in their host country shows that Amsterdam is considered the place for professionals to live, while France tops the list of countries to take a break in.

Why Britons are moving abroad?

Dutch children are the happiest

Perhaps more than other residents of a country expats are acutely aware of the quality of life offered by their surroundings. Moving constantly from place to place, comparisons are naturally made, not just between home and the current country of residence but between several countries ‘abroad’. Unlike a two-week holiday on the beach when we say I would love to just move here, an expat’s decision to move is normally based on professional criteria.

Often we are posted somewhere that might not perhaps be first or even second choice. Expatica covers Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. And so we decided to ask a series of questions, designed to find out what international professionals think of their surroundings and how they measure their quality of life in general. Liveability and well-being were combined in a survey that went to the very heart of what it’s like to be an exile.

The respondents were split between the genders, 59.6 percent female to 40.4 percent male and just over 53 percent had spent between 4-6 years in the new country.

We asked our users to qualify a variety of aspect of their lives. When asked "How would you qualify the quality of affordable housing in the country that you work?" around 50 percent found it acceptable. As for local services, including Health care 45 percent answered Good and only 16 percent found them Bad. Over 50 percent found the quality of food (supermarkets, etc) Good and only 10 percent believed that the Air Quality was Bad, with 50.9 percent considering it Good.

Public transport came out well at 55.4 percent positive and only around 14 percent had a negative experience. Perhaps surprisingly 58.5 percent found the drinking water good. Around the same number rated local entertainment highly. Qualifying the quality of children’s education was more mixed, split almost evenly been Good and Acceptable but with only 10 percent unhappy.

A large majority considered the crime rate either Low or Acceptable and a narrow majority found "value for money" Acceptable.

When asked about the job market only 23.0 percent said employment prospects in the country were Good, 43 percent Acceptable. However half of the workers were satisfied with their current job. Does the following apply to you? "You are not worried about retirement as you have a good insurance that will allow you to enjoy your life after you have stopped working?" was answered by 42 percent with a resounding ‘No’. But 44 percent said that their current financial situation is good and allows them to do the things they want to do.

Turning towards the notion of ‘well-being‘, we asked more personal questions such as "To what extent are you living your life to the fullest?" 48 percent rated it highly and 57 percent of respondents were very happy with life in general. In more detail, when asked to rate the factors that make for a high quality life, Good Health, Love Relationship and Friends were ahead, with Family, Job Satisfaction and Good Housing not far behind. One response was "sorry, they’re all important!"

A narrow majority of 54.7 percent decided that the overall quality of life was better in the country of origin. A high figure of 82 percent rated either ‘Good’ or ‘Acceptable’ the progress/innovation in the country in which they now work.

In the holiday stakes ("The most desirable destination to enjoy your vacation") France came out on top with Italy and the USA close behind. New Zealand scored highly too. As to which city professionals would like to live in, Amsterdam came out ahead while London and Paris did well, as did Barcelona. Added to the list were Saarbrücken, Annot in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and one answer stated "any city if you have money and job :-)".