A few more questions on behalf of my dp.

[Thunderduck]

This time, for anyone who has emigrated to any country.

Why did you emigrate? Job, better lifestyle, family etc?

And has homesickness been an issue for you?

DP has been rattling on about moving to Australia non stop, and I'm not convinced by his reasons for wanting to make the move.

bumping for you

Better lifesyle.
Better standard of living.
Better climate.
Safer.
More opportunities for work.
More time to enjoy life, kids etc
Homesickness has never played a part...However...I have wept buckets over missing my friends...those close friends you have had for years...who you can call on for a good giggle or cry....

ditto israel - except for me no need to work and put ds's in day care 8-6 5 days/week.

6 years later still desperately miss people not the place although always love to come home to visit London, my home town.

Ditto Isreal too, apart from the safer part. Plus excellent home help options, which means better quality time spent with the dc and excellent childcare.
Plus a fantastic country/part of the world to explore.
Plus the opportunity for the dc to grow up in a culture other than their own, perhaps enabling them to open their eyes a bit more to the big wide world out there.

Homesickness has never been an issue for us, we have moved around for the last 10 years before settling here. But I miss my family a great deal, however, the time I spend with them when we are together is fantastic and probably much better than if we lived in the same country.

In my opinion it ALL depends on which country you move to. I can´t comment on Aus but where we are in Spain I have found that there aren´t as many positives as one may think...

EG: It´s very hard to get decent part-time work here therefore full-time work is often the only option and hours are usually very long

Opportunities for work are much more limited compared with the UK, training and courses in particular

DH who is Spanish works much longer days than he ever did in the UK, there is little flexibility

The climate is much better but the hot summers I find are over-whelming. I am constantly applying Factor 60 to DS and trying my best to keep him out of the sun as much as poss, which in reality can be a tad tiring

Much safer and far less crime

Homesickness a huge one for me. Its very hard to fully integrate

At the end of the day you still have to deal with the daily grind - go to work, pay the bills, deal with cranky people, take the rubbish out, whatever. What I really want to say is the grass is not always greener. Sadly I have learned this much to my own detriment

Good Luck with what you decide