Singapore has been the ranked as the Asian country most favoured by expats in a new survey, with the Philippines next.
Despite high living expenses, expatriates based in Republic said they were happy with their well-being, safety, family life, health and more. Close to two-thirds of the respondents cited political stability and said the country was peaceful, in their response.
Overall, Singapore ranked sixth among 61 countries in the survey, with Ecuador, Luxembourg and Mexico taking up the first three spots.
Switzerland and the United States were ranked fourth and fifth respectively, according to the 2014 survey report of the Expat Insider, run by InterNations, which claims to be the world's first international online community for people who live and work outside their home countries.
Spain took the seventh spot, followed by the Philippines, Australia and Hong Kong in the list of top 10 cities in the survey, done in June this year.
The survey results were based on insights drawn from 14,000 expats based in 169 countries and cities. The findings were reported by Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) on Oct 13. PDI is a member of the voluntary newspaper grouping Asia News Network, of which The Straits Times is a founding member.
The report comes at a time when other polls have rated Singapore high in terms of rising costs of living.
Nearly one in two people polled by Standard Life said high expat salaries were no match for the rising costs of living in the city state, according to a report by Yahoo! news. But at the same time, 80 per cent of the respondents said they earned more and 70 per cent said they saved more after moving to the Republic.
Standard Life is an Edinburgh based insurance and investment group. The group polled 128 British and European expats living in Singapore for the survey, completed in June this year.
The Economist, in March, rated Singapore as the costliest place to live in.
In the Expat Insiders survey, the Republic ranked sixth in terms of the Quality of Life index with three in four (76 per cent) describing the quality of medical care here as good or even very good. The global average was 53 per cent. The city state also ranked high in terms of travel and transport (4th) and Health and Safety (4th).
However, in terms of living expenses, less than a sixth thought positively of housing prices in Singapore, which was far less than the global average of 50 per cent. And only 8 per cent of the Singapore-based respondents described the general costs of living as good or very good.
Close to half (44 per cent) of the respondents said their disposable income was enough or even more than enough to cover their expenses.
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Singapore - Expat Rating
Overall - 6 out of 61
Quality of Life - 6 out of 61
Ease of Settling in - 23 out of 61
Working abroad - 10 out of 61
Family life - 6 out of 34
Personal Finance - 36 out of 61
Cost of Living - 56 out of 61
Source: The InterNations Survey
