Born and raised in Malaysia, lived in several countries in America/Europe. Now considering Singapore to live long term or the rest of my life.
My perspective is the root cause of many people wanting to emmigrate is money. There's property, romantic life, family drama, tons of reasons to escape and I've had many of them, but they all trace back to not having enough money and feeling you can't earn as much.
- Hiring foreigners over locals for job/career and salary progression stuck - Can't earn enough money
- Working a crappy job that has long hours/toxic - Don't have enough money
Otherwise can quit at will and look for a better job.
- Property too expensive - Don't have enough money
- Poor romantic prospects - Don't have enough money
You can't buy true love but fact is having money can make you a far more interesting person. Poor person ain't going to go sailing or skydiving or frequent travels across multiple countries. "Poor" is not necessarily financially speaking, but could also mean working a crap job that doesn't allow you to take leave, for example.
- Escape family drama - Don't have enough money
Otherwise can move out to own place, even if it's down the street.
- Don't like local education system - Don't have enough money
Otherwise can send kids overseas to be educated. Don't even have to wait to uni level. Feel like quite a few people migrate to enjoy PR/local tuition rates for their kids.
People don't really care* about politics and other macro-level things (e.g. racism and discrimination) unless it affects or starts to affect them.
*Important to distinguish between actually caring vs pretending to care. E.g. many social media posts are just people virtue signalling and pretending to care just to look good to others. In reality, they may not actually care about whatever they're posting about.
It's not a guarantee that you'll be financially better off in a new country, even if as a Malaysian with exchange rate is on your side (though the odds are certainly in your favor) and even if you have solid and/or specialized career experience, and even if you go there with a PR already in hand (see asshole "Canadian experience" system where many Canadian jobs will only consider work experience in Canada as experience... truly fucked up). For Singaporeans, it's an even less clear choice.
Even if you did land a job and it's an upgrade in pay and work-life balance (I certainly did), you're likely paying for it in a less obvious way (if you migrated with someone else and don't feel it at all, your spouse or your kids might be taking the brunt of it). Most commonly, it's
romantic life and career ceiling.
Despite all the claims of better equality and "caring" about others through movements like Black Lives Matter, Refugees Welcome "we welcome diversity", and seemingly giving off the impression by letting you in, Mr/Ms Immigrant, t
hese two huge racism-centered problems have a high possibility of affecting you and/or your kids.
Speaking from personal experience and doing way too much research, years of it, getting into a relationship as a single Asian male in a western country is akin to striking the lottery. Unless you are absolutely OK with remaining single for the rest of your life and/or not having a family, this is a huge factor.
At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, was it all worth the additional earnings?
At the beginning, in my early 20's, where my savings per month was as much as the entire monthly salary of a mid-level employee in Malaysia, the answer was a clear yes for me. But as the years passed and I had close to no luck dating, the answer became more muddy:
- On one hand I was still saving more money than the average person my age and level in Malaysia and even Singapore.
- On the other, the gap was much less than it was before (on average, entry-level/fresh grad pay in western countries is much more attractive, but salaries scale harder in MY/SG and can outstrip western salaries starting in your 30's) and I was still single with little chance of meeting a life partner in sight.
- Somewhere in between, I tried out dating apps while vacationing in SEA and realized I wasn't the problem because I could land tons of local matches and dates without a problem. It really was racism (many people gaslight you to believing you need to make your profile or pictures better). This made me more depressed and more bitter as I lamented my time abroad even more.
- The bitterness I had developed towards the unfairness of the country (Germany) had consumed me so much that even after I got into a relationship (Asian girl) over there, it was still there and IMO it was one of contributing factors to the relationship ending.
Unless you chose to move to a place where you already have relatives (good idea!), you're also at least 8 hours by flight away from any family or friends to support you, and you'll feel especially lonely at the early stages of having to setup not just your physical life (property, furnishing, schooling) but your social one as well. The process of making friends from scratch as an adult past your uni days really, really sucks - most people already have their own cliques or have families to tend to.
Obviously there's some truth to the pros of moving and working to a different country, but what I've learned is to get in, get the degree and job, let the "western experience" timer on the resume tick upwards, then get out.
I don't deny my life as a whole has been a lot better for most of my time living abroad (due to toxic parents, poor salaries in Malaysia, impossible to live alone and save up in MY/SG as a fresh graduate) but I also acknowledge the pros have faded and the world isn't as clear cut as "move to different country, get PR, byebye shit hole I'm happier abroad" as most Malaysian/Singaporean seem to think it is.
