51% affected by rising prices
The increase in the cost of living during the last year has affected more than half of Americans living abroad. Once again, most of the American expats who noted a rise in prices lived in Costa Rica, Mexico and Thailand. Food, real estate, energy, and the automobile sector were the most affected by this increase according to these American expats. 66.2% believe that this increase is a direct consequence of the health crisis.
American expats returning home
According to the data collected, 10.5% of American people have decided to return home because of the price increase in their host country. Americans who have decided to return home live mainly in Mexico, Kuwait, Vietnam and Czech Republic and are mostly retired (52.4%), employed (12.5%) and entrepreneurs (25.67%). 41.3% of these Americans people believe that this price increase is a direct consequence of the health crisis.
Americans who have chosen to find their way back to their home country, however, do not only do so because of the cost of living. Indeed, our open-ended questions revealed that there is much more to it than the rise in cost of living. For American expat living in the Philippines, for example, the sanitary and economic crisis has caused job loss and the inability to find work. “I go without food sometimes. It is time to call it a day and head home,” they say. They also mention that there has been an increase in the price of food, utility bills, automobile and everyday products in the Philippines.
For another American expat living in the Czech Republic, it is the price of real estate that motivated their move. “We wanted to invest in property but Czech Republic is too expensive now. We had to consider another option and we are in the process of moving to our recently purchased property in central Portugal,” they say. The entrepreneur who is above 60 years old is however more prudent with the next move than with the last one because of the rise in cost of living across the world.
Disillusion for the retirees
The retiree who took part in the survey were more likely to make the decision to move back to America than the employed and entrepreneurs. Indeed, the cost of living and the sanitary restrictions seems to have caused retirees to give up on a sunny retirement. An American living in Mexico explains that their life had radically changed over the last year with prices spiking and having to stay at home more. “We are leaving because everything is too expensive and it is not worth it because we had originally moved here to enjoy a retirement in the sun, to meet people, to live the local culture but that does not seem to be possible anymore!”
Respondent profiles
A total of 8,000 expatriates and future expatriates participated in this study, including 224 American expatriates. The majority of the respondents were over 60 years old (58.9%) and between 40 and 60 years old (29.9%). Not surprisingly, 62.05% of the American expatriates surveyed were retired. 17% were salaried and the rest were entrepreneurs, students and unemployed.
