India falls eight ranks in 2017 expatriates’ survey of best countries to live and work
Around 36% of the respondents were concerned about safety before moving to the country, and over 52% of the female expats said they often felt unwelcome.
India fell eight places from 49th to 57th in a ranking of the best countries to live and work in. A survey of 13,000 expatriates of 166 nationalities, conducted by expat network InterNations, found that India’s ranking was pulled down mainly by the Family Life Index, on which the country ranked 39th in 2017 as against 29th in 2016.
Some 29% of the expatriates interviewed feel there is limited scope for children’s education in India, though 61% of them said they are happy with the quality of education. More than 54% also feel that education is expensive in the country, according to the Expat Insider survey.
Over 52% of female expatriates said there were situations where they felt unwelcome in India because of their gender. Nearly 31% also stay at home to look after their children, even though 47% of female expats have a postgraduate degree or PhD and another 37% a bachelor’s degree, the report said. Nearly 16% of the female expatriates interviewed said they were generally unhappy with their life in India.
India has also performed poorly in the Working Abroad Index, dropping 18 places to 49 out of 65 countries in 2017. The country ranks 58th on the work-life balance, mainly because of long working hours – 47.7 hours per week on an average as against the global average of 44.3 hours.
Expatriates living in India were found to be generally happy with the quality of healthcare – 62% of the respondents rated the country positively on this parameter. However, 80% said they are dissatisfied with the quality of the environment and found it too polluted.
More than 36% of respondents were concerned about safety before moving to India. Over 29% continued to feel this way after arriving in the country, the survey revealed.
United States, United Kingdom also fall in rankings
The United States and the United Kingdom also fell sharply in the 2017 ranking of best nations to live in, the Expat Insider survey found. While the US dropped from the fifth spot to the 43rd, the UK is in the 54th place in the 2017 rankings.
The election of Donald Trump as the US president and Britain’s move to leave the European Union are believed to have caused this drastic change of opinion. Expatriates also said that the affordability of healthcare has declined in the US, and housing costs have increased in the UK.