10 Types of Expats: Which Are You?

10 Types of Expats: Which Are You?

        “¿Por qué Uruguay?”  Ich fragte den armenischen Gastronomen, warum er nach Montevideo gezogen sei.

He winked at me and smiled. “Por amor.”

He was clearly a “romantic,” as defined by InterNations in their second annual Expat Insider survey, updated for 2015. The expat organization surveyed 14,000 of its 1.8 million members from around the world to assess the living situation and well-being of expatriates. With this wealth of quantitative and qualitative data, they defined 10 specific types of expats, as shown in the infographic below.

Interestingly, less than 10% of expats are like our Armenian restaurateur who moved in the name of love. When I look at a cross-section of my own friends, one (maybe two) in 20 have left their home country for love. The others are evenly distributed across the other nine categories.

Kia and I have never taken such a big step. We have been working and living abroad for over a year and will be away for a few more months, but we still pay our taxes in the UK and call it home. If we were to take the final plunge, I think we would fall into the “greener pastures” category since we would be self-employed and cost of living would probably be our main consideration before moving.

Of course, the 10 categories aren't 100% comprehensive - there will always be people who don't fit neatly into one - but given the scope of the survey, this is the most representative data we have. What type of expat are you? Or, if you haven't taken the plunge yet, what would you probably do in the future?

10 types of emigrants

Click image for larger version alt="Types of Expats">

Download the full 2015 Expat Insider Report.

(Main image: Dreamstime.com)

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