Here's why North Americans are pulling up stakes and moving to Panama, Nicaragua and Belize.
NEW YORK -- A sizeable number of U.S. citizens have moved to Central America.
Estimates from the United Nations Population Division in mid-2013 showed 13,000 Americans living in Costa Rica, 12,000 in Panama, 4,000 in Nicaragua and 3,000 in Belize.
Costa Rica has long been attractive destination for U.S. retirees, but the latter three countries have become increasingly popular in recent years and often turn up on lists of the best places to retire abroad, including one from AARP.
Why would someone pull up stakes to live in a foreign country with perhaps a different language and culture?
A recently published study, "Expats: Expectations & Reality," by Best Places In The World to Retire, provides some answers.
It summarizes the responses of 389 expatriates living in Central America, the vast majority of whom live in Panama, Belize and Nicaragua. The survey was hosted on SurveyGizmo and was conducted between April 17 and April 27. Among respondents, 73.5 percent said their home country was the U.S., while 12.9 percent came from Canada, 4.6 percent from the U.K., 3.9 percent from elsewhere in Europe and the remainder from other countries.
A whopping 82 percent of respondents said they moved in order to lead "a simpler, less stressful life," while 55.8 percent were seeking "a less materialistic or more meaningful life" and 42.4 percent were seeking "a more romantic, exotic, or adventurous life."
Here are some more reasons why people had moved.
Among respondents, 86.6 percent said they thought they could lower their cost of living by moving. They also said they would enjoy a better quality of life as a result. Here's why:
- They would have less stress to pay bills. If they were retired, their retirement income would go much further, allowing them to travel and engage in other life-enriching activities they couldn't afford otherwise.
- They would have less stress because they would no longer have to do many of the things they didn't want to do in order to make more money. Now they wouldn't need as much money. They could avoid or eliminate, for example, driving in rush hour traffic to go to a job or spending lots of hours working.
- The ability to hire household help (gardeners, handymen, housekeepers) very inexpensively would mean an easier life with more free time.
- Not having to work at all or working less would allow them to have more time to do the things they enjoyed, such as being with friends, reading books, taking up hobbies or simply taking naps.
One of the more often occurring themes was the desire of many respondents (mainly baby boomers and older) who wanted to live like they remembered living in North America when they were growing up. In their view, the quality of life in North America had gotten worse overall, and the way to live life like they did in North America in the past was, ironically, to leave North America and move to one of these Central American countries.
Respondents said the people in Central America in general put a greater emphasis on family and also have deeper, more meaningful friendships than in North America. The belief is that, in Central America, work takes a back seat to interpersonal relationships. They also believed that the pace would be slower, and therefore, more human and more enjoyable.
There was a widespread view among respondents that they would have more freedom living overseas because of the absence of having to pay high taxes and comply with government regulations and cultural norms that many believed had evolved to the point that they were stifling.
Respondents said that having more freedom would lead to a more meaningful life, because the choices to be made would be made by the individual voluntarily, as opposed to having outcomes imposed on them. As a result, respondents said they would experience an increased sense of control and self-worth. This, of course, is the opposite of the traditional view that the U.S. has more freedom than anywhere in the world. Many of the expats just didn't believe this was still the case, and so they sought that freedom elsewhere.
Nearly a third of respondents said they moved overseas believing that by doing so, they would be more engaged in charitable activities and helping others. Why didn't they just engage in these activities in North America? The reasons we were most often told were:
- "They need us more over here";
- "They're more grateful for the help over here"; and,
- They could immediately and intimately see the results of their efforts, because the person receiving the help would be right in front of them.
The respondents said the stress to "keep up with the Joneses" would be reduced by moving overseas for two reasons:
- The great majority of nonexpats living among the respondents would have fewer material possessions, so the expats would be well-off by comparison; and,
- The culture in their new home would be less concerned with material goods, sometimes because those goods were not viewed as important by locals and expats, and sometimes because they weren't available for purchase.