A survey conducted by Expat.com with over 8,000 expats and future-expats from all around the world reveals that the spike in cost of living has been a real game changer for expatriation. It has pushed 30% of expats to move back to their home country but it is not all gloom and doom. Here's what we found.
According to our data, 30% of expatriates have made the choice to move back to their home country over the past year because of the rise in cost of living in their expat country. Most of these expatriates seem to live in Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and France. Of the expatriates who have decided to radically change their expat plans, up to 80% stated that the main sector affected by this rise was food, followed by real estate and utility bills. In the responses collected from the expats who decided to go home, however, we noticed that the rise in cost of living was not the only factor that pushed them to leave. For example, one respondent who had moved from Tunisia to Turkey mentioned that they could not find a job. Indeed, around 15% of those who mentioned having left their host country were unemployed. Other expats also mentioned that their earnings were not enough anymore to cover their expenses.
Although only 30% of expats have moved back home because of the cost of living, 74.80% have said that there has been a rise in cost of living in their expat country. Once again, they mostly lived in Saudi Arabia, France, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. 81.10% of these expats have mentioned that the rise had particularly affected food. Other sectors impacted were mainly utility bills, real estate and transport. 34% of expats said the rise in cost of living was the direct effect of the COVID-19 crisis while 44.51% said they did not know where this rise was coming from. And while these respondents have not decided to shorten their stay because of the rise in cost of living, most of them did mention that the rise had negatively impacted their quality of life in their expat country.
It is not all doom and gloom, however, as 25% of expats did mention having witnessed either a drop in overall cost of living or a drop in certain essential sectors. These expats lived in Thailand, Singapore and Mexico amongst others. These respondents had mainly noticed a drop in the cost of real estate, followed by food, leisure and education. In this scenario, 56.88% of the expats who did witness a drop in cost of living or a selective drop reported that their quality of life also improved during this time, which is an interesting number in the midst of a global pandemic.
Of the expats who participated in the survey, 26.73% reported not having noticed a change in cost of living at all in the past year. They lived mostly in Belgium, Spain and Senegal, amongst others.
Respondents profile
The survey was carried out over the months of September and October 2021 and managed to reach 8,000 expats living all over the world as well as expats who are looking forward to settling abroad. Of the respondents, most (34.39%) were aged between 25 and 40 years old, 30.39% were aged between 40 and 60 years old and 25.63% were above 60. 27% of respondents were employed, 17.12% were retired and 9.85% were entrepreneurs. Expatriates were mainly French (51.16%), American (17.05%) and British (11.21%).
