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Despite the high experience ranking, expats in Asia have trouble integrating

Despite the many positives of expat life in Asia, both financially and in terms of quality of life, it appears that a move to the region does come with some difficulties.

Expats living in Asia generally report finding it difficult to integrate into the local community. The number of expats who agreed strongly that they had integrated well in the local community in Asian countries including Malaysia (25%) Singapore (19%), Thailand (14%), and Hong Kong (11%) were much lower in comparison to many English-speaking countries such as Canada (44%), Australia (43%) and the UK (41%). The trend is highlighted when looking at the social activity of expats in these countries, with many expats in Hong Kong (50%), Thailand (48%) and Singapore (41%) in strong agreement that they tend to socialise with other expats rather than locals.

Learning the local language is a serious barrier to integration for expats living in Asia, with more than half of expats in Hong Kong (59%), and higher than average levels in Thailand (45%) and Malaysia (25%), finding learning a local language very difficult. As a result, while a third (33%) of expats across the world agreed strongly that they try to learn the local language of their new country; these levels are much lower in Thailand (24%), Singapore (15%), Malaysia (14%) and Hong Kong (9%).

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