Expat Quality of Life in GCC - Bahrain is best, Kuwait is worst

Middle East World

Expat Quality of Life in GCC - Bahrain is best, Kuwait is worst

Expats in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait find it harder to settle down than anywhere else, with the countries ranked 67th and 68th in the Ease of Settling In Index. Qatar also performs poorly in 41st position. In the Feeling at Home subcategory of this index, Saudi Arabia is the worst-performing country overall. Not even a quarter of expats (24%) believe that it is easy to settle down there, compared to a global average of 59%, and over half (51%) say that it is difficult to get used to the local culture. This is a significantly larger share than the global average of 21%. The same problems are evident in Kuwait, where just a quarter of respondents say they feel at home in the local culture, compared to 60% of respondents worldwide.

The process of settling in can be helped by making new friends and being surrounded by friendly people, two factors which expats in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have extreme difficulty with. Almost two-thirds of respondents in Kuwait (65%) say that making local friends is difficult, while 44% are not satisfied with the opportunities to make new friends in general. Respondents in Saudi Arabia attest to the same difficulties, albeit to a lesser extent, with 57% and 35%, respectively. The significance of these figures becomes clear when compared with the respective global averages of 36% and 25%.

The result of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which descend to the last two places in the Expat Insider 2018survey, couldn't balance more with those of Bahrain, which puts first generally speaking in the Ease of Settling In Index, trailed by Oman in sixteenth and the UAE in 26th place. Bahrain positions first or second in the majority of the subcategories of the list. "Bahrain is a decent middle amongst eastern and western societies," shares a British expat.

With regards to learning and additionally getting by without the neighborhood dialect, four of the six states put inside the main 15: Bahrain (first), the UAE (sixth), Qatar (thirteenth), and Oman (fourteenth). In spite of the fact that not stupendous, Kuwait (43rd) and Saudi Arabia (49th) perform extraordinarily preferred in the Language subcategory over in numerous different subcategories of the review.

Universally, 40% of expats refer to work or their accomplice's profession as the primary inspiration for their turn abroad. In any case, in the Gulf States, half or more expats in every individual nation say the same. Aside from Bahrain, which puts first in the Working Abroad Index, there is clear disappointment among expats in the Gulf States with respect to their working life, however. Qatar (35th), Oman (39th), and the UAE (46th) all perform beneath normal, with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia yet again at the back of the pack in 64th and 66th place, separately.

Over 33% of respondents in Saudi Arabia (35%) are disappointed with their employments, contrasted with 18% of expats around the world, while fulfillment levels among expats in Oman (62%), Qatar (59%), the UAE (57%), and particularly Kuwait (46%) all fall underneath the worldwide normal of 65%.

Generally speaking occupation fulfillment over the area is low, in any case, in general professional stability is much more terrible: Bahrain remains the main asylum of employment solidness in the district, with seven of every ten expats saying that they feel secure in their activity contrasted with 59% around the world. Every one of the five residual Gulf States rank inside the last 15 nations for this factor.