Who are you? The results of the 2011 Expatica Survey.

You are a 44 year old female who works at an international company and lives with her partner and 0.9 children. No? Read on for a more in-depth interpretation of the results.

The basics: Age and gender

Your average age is 44 years, but the most represented age bracket is 30-39. 

If you are living in Spain, you are likely to be somewhat older (and wiser?) and belong to the 50-59 (23%) or 60-69 bracket (24%).

Overall, women are in a small ‘lead’ (54%) but, in Spain, you are evenly matched at 50-50.

Where have you been and where are you going?

Our first finding is this: most of you are veterans.

While some of you are quite new to the country (14% have been here for less than a year), the majority have been around for over five years (53%).

This is even more noticeable in Spain, where a dominant 67% have over five years of experience with la vida Española.

You might think that this means you are mostly settled where you are now, which may be true – and it may not be. Only about a quarter of you have plans to stay in the country for more than five years, and just as many have plans for a shorter period of time. The rest simply "don’t know" yet. 

Sunny Spain seems to have a firmer hold on you, though, with 42% planning to stay for over five years.

These results are not too surprising in light of another finding: this is not likely to be the first country you’ve moved to. In fact, with the exception of about 10%, you have lived in at least one other ‘foreign’ country, and many of you have lived in several.

You are clearly not afraid of packing up and moving on (or back) – it is now only a question of whether you will want to.

Why are you here?

You may wonder then – what is driving all of you to make a new move?

With almost 40% overall, work appears to be the clearly dominant reason for your move. However, two other broader categories give it a run for its money: way of life (‘quality of life’ and ‘international experience’ add up to 45%) and love (partner’s work and citizenship add up to 33%).

The situation is somewhat different in Spain, where quality of life comes out as a clear winner (66%), while less than a fifth of you moved for work. 

What are you doing here? Part 1: Work

Not surprisingly, most of you work for an international company. You are generally at higher positions in the company (most are senior staff) and you are most likely to have at least a Bachelor’s degree (38%), and potentially a Master’s (30%) or a PhD (8%).

Among those of you living in Spain, a higher number is retired (39%) or self-employed (22%), while a lower number is in search of a job (4%)

As you can see in the graph below, you work in a variety of sectors, with IT in a small lead.

What are you doing here? Part 2: Away from work

A large majority of you live with a partner (71% overall; 76% in Spain) and about half of you have children (two is the most popular number). 

And, finally, here is what you like doing with your free time: reading, traveling and watching a good film.

Expatica editorial team