The world's economic landscape has fundamentally changed since 2010. Widespread unrest across much of the Middle East has meant that many of the world's rapidly expanding frontier markets have witnessed a slowdown coupled with the Eurozone debt crisis and a fragile US recovery.
Given this, it's not surprising that this year's Expat Economics report reveals 67% of expats worldwide believe the economic situation in their country has either stayed the same (37%) or deteriorated (30%) over the past year. While this figure appears to paint a rather negative picture of expat economic outlook, this sentiment is actually more positive than last year - In 2010 almost half of expats surveyed believed that the economy in their current country had deteriorated.
Expats remain relatively robust to the wider turmoil with only 14% of expats who believe the economic situation in their country has deteriorated actively looking to return home, and 63% intending to stay in their current location.
Despite some countries experiencing significant economic deterioration, their position on the Expat Economics league table has not been affected. Expats are seemingly downturn defiant with their finances remaining comparatively unaffected by the wider economic turmoil within their country of residence. Supporting this assumption is the fact that expat finances remain strong even in countries which have seen significant deterioration such as Egypt (97% of expats believe the economy has deteriorated since 2010 versus average of 30%), Bahrain (92%) and Japan (80%).
That expats are downturn defiant explains why a number of markets in which expats report the weakest economic outlook are still in the top half of the Expat Economic league table. For example 77% of expats living in Egypt believe that the economy is weak yet the country still ranks 2nd in the overall Expat Economics league table. This trend is mirrored in Bahrain and Japan where 40% of expats believe the economy is weak and yet the countries rank 10th and 12th respectively in the overall Expat Economics league table.
This is further supported when the closer financial rewards of being an expat in markets which have seen deterioration are examined. For example, 52% of expats in Bahrain have much higher disposable incomes than they did in their home country, as well as 58% of expats in Egypt and 38% of expats in Japan, compared with the average of 35%. Furthermore, 60% of expats in Egypt are saving more, 50% are investing more and 17% are paying off more debt. This trend is similar to that in Bahrain (83%, 42% and 31% respectively) and Japan (60%, 37% and 20% respectively).
