OzTennis

Some were, some weren't; I was referring to the one size fits all reasons for emigrating. BTW, I can't help thinking of the famous Festival Hall in Melbourne when I see you online name - it was a boxing arena and its nickname was the House of Stoush.

Oink

As your long post indicated, economic pressures have and are a main influence in the decision to emigrate. The point is, you're unlikely to up sticks and bugger off half way round the world if you have a good job and you're are happy.

Japonica

We had good jobs. Smaller mortgage. Family close by. Content enough. But we looked around and said, "Wow, Edmonton. Is this it for life then?"

bibblybobbly

I just don't see it that way, you could argue that people who are happy to spend their whole life in Uk, and don't wish to live abroad, are boring and don't have the guts for a change. It doesn't make sense. Some people are happy to stay in their country of birth, some want to spread their wings and travel further afield. How can either of them be wrong? I know many many very successful people ,who were very wealthy in uk, live was very good, they wanted a change,made the change and have not regretted a single day

Budgie1

A quick note on annual leave in Australia vs Canada - Australia you will do better in an "average" style job (ie the pretty standard 4 weeks), but as you get more senior in Canada you are more likely to get more options - for instance I get 7 weeks leave. I'd never get that much leave in Oz.

As I said in my first post - if you are early in your career Australia is likely better, as you get more senior I think Canada may have the edge as far as income taxes, pay and conditions go with some variability depending on what Province you live in. Of course YMMV.

OzTennis

You may not have economic pressures but another pull or push factor can kick in obviously.

Amazulu

What if you have a crap job and are unhappy?

OzTennis

Interesting to scan the recently published UK Rich List and to see the top 10:

1 Alisher Usmanov £13.3 bn
2 Len Blavatnik £11 bn
3 Sri and Gopi Hinduja £10.6 bn
4 Lakshmi Mittal £10 bn
5 Roman Abramovich £9.3 bn
6 John Fredriksen £8.8 bn
7 David and Simon Reuben £8.2 bn
8 Duke of Westminster £7.8 bn
9 Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli £7.4 bn
10 Charlene and Michel de Carvalho £7 bn

Apparently people who are successful have no reason to migrate.

One wonders then why all bar one of these left Uzbekistan, Russia, India, Switzerland, Holland and Norway?

For the record the Duke of Westminster and former Miss UK Kirsty Roper who married Swiss pharmaceutical magnate Ernesto Bertarelli are the only British born in this list.

Budawang

Well that totally blows Oink's thesis out of the water.

jad n rich

Accent is awful. Weather channel kept saying "Awwdum" last night, Pardon?, oh you mean Autumn.

Bad as news reporters saying 'I'd ull be dwenny degrees dudaay. Ok twenty degrees today, or on chewsdayy or jewsdaay, fursdaay will be noice.

Its sounds lazy and common, but is at its worst when frequently punctuated with bloody or the F word every second word for absolutely no reason.

jad n rich

On holidays, One point that often catches immigrants is 40%+ of aussie jobs are casual. Even for long term jobs people have done for years/decades. Some huge employers have an almost entirely casual workforce. No actual holiday pay, just a small additional hourly allowance and ' if and when we need you at call work hours'. Professional jobs too, not just retail etc.

jad n rich

I think thats it. You have one life, so why not experience more than one place.

The hard part is the experience often comes with a a huge emotional and financial cost. Few of us are easy going enough not to suffer somewhat in those areas along the way.

People who really dont have close family or high financial aspirations usually do best. Life complications like kids education and employment, often prevent a quick rewind of 'we will just go back then" .

We have waited out our kids education before going off again. And going off again will set us back years financially, but 'is this it then' is a big NO for me too

Budawang

This is a bleak assessment of migration and begs the question why so many otherwise intelligent people choose to move to another country.

My experience of migration has been more positive. Financially I know I'm better off than if I'd stayed in Canada and emotionally things have also worked out quite well. Am I the exception?

Dorothy

Maybe you are unlikely to up sticks and bugger off half way around the world if you have a good job and are happy. The same cannot be said for everyone.
Same with us J. My old man had a good job, we had a nice house (and looking back now would have been pretty much mortgage free had we still lived there), the kids were in good schools and we were content. I saw a small couple of line blurb in the newspaper saying Australia needs Skilled Migrants and thought, "Hey! We're skilled. Let's be Australian migrants".

Dreamy

I don't think so, Budwang. Himself had a good job in the UK and is doing something very similar here (for much more pay), I'm just about to start up the business I've been talking about for the last 20 years (that's proper procrastination right there) and we've enjoyed our move to Australia and have all settled in well. Including the horrendous teenage/twentage children (who were teenagers on our arrival) (although to be fair, they're the sort of teenagers who are happy so long as they have an Internet connection)

This is our home for the foreseeable future.