HSBC Expat Experience: It’s All About The Money… Or Is It?

Posted on 05. Mar, 2009 by Emmanuelle Archer in Blog, Expat Life
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As promised earlier this week, I took a closer look at the 2008 HSBC “Expat Existence” report… and I am puzzled.

According to HSBC, this report “ranks the top rated places to live based on expats’ own personal experiences.“ Visibly, our personal experiences solely depend on how much money we make and how luxurious our lifestyles are. Because that is all this report is about.

I guess I would agree with this approach if the survey set out to measure earning and spending power, or even standards of living. Instead, HSBC claims to rate countries on the lifestyle they offer, based on four categories:

– Longevity (how long expats spend in a country)
– Earn and Save
– Luxury
– Quality of accommodation

Is that all? Can you really do a lifestyle survey and not take into account criteria like safety, pollution, convenience or recreation?

You may be wondering why this is getting me so worked up. The survey does focus on money, you say, but after all a bank conducts it! What else could we expect?

Well, here is why I am getting up on my soapbox (in heels, no less!):

Surveys like this reinforce the idea that expatriation equals a luxurious, easy lifestyle- “seeking the good life abroad”, as the report puts it.

Don’t get me wrong; I have absolutely nothing against making money. I have a master’s in business management and I am an entrepreneur. I definitely do not think that money is evil, or that earning a lot of it is shameful.

From the point of view of expat happiness, however, I do worry about those who accept international assignments for the financial rewards alone.

- If things do not work out, expats are often torn between giving up on a lucrative assignment and leaving a location that is simply not right for them. Not only are they miserable, they have a lot at stake financially, which makes it even harder to decide whether to stay or go.
- High earning and a high standard of living come with their own challenges, such as finding the right tax strategy or dealing with household staff. Conversely, readjusting to their home country after the end of their assignment may prove more difficult for expats who got used to having a cook, driver and live-in nanny.
- I still see many people on expat message boards enquiring about finding a job in Dubai or Hong Kong, lured by the prospect of “easy” money. As we all know, things have changed drastically over the past few months, but even before the financial crisis, the trend was for corporations to cut down on expat perks and offer local packages to their employees. Which means that in the future, more and more expats will have to make ends meet living in Shanghai on a Chinese salary, or in Cairo on Egyptian wages.

I am not suggesting that we should all stop negotiating expat packages, or give up looking for better opportunities overseas. Far from it. If on top of being a wonderful adventure, expatriation proves to be a wise financial move, by all means go for it!
However, we may want to reconsider money as the prime or sole motivation for moving abroad. It is a fast-changing world we live in, so the more legs our life choices have to stand on, the better.

Emmanuelle

Related post: The Expat Life: HSBC Expat Explorer Survey