Deciding whether to live in India or the UK?

Background & context

My name is Abhishek, and I am the regular IT professional you would probably meet in any corner of the world. Born in India, I am originally from the state of Assam - famous for its tea and silk. My childhood was spent in various parts of the country due to the transferable nature of my father's job, who was a decorated Indian Army officer. I therefore had a chance to live in Jammu, Ranchi, Guwahati, Shillong, and even in New Delhi, Hosur and Bengaluru later for my studies. After completing my post-graduation in Software Engineering, I decided to venture out and see the world.

Going to the UK

I got myself admitted to the MBA program at Coventry University, UK, and went to the UK in 2005. Little did I know then that I would be spending the next 10 years of my life there. Like all other immigrants, I gradually worked my way through the various visa categories of the UK Home Office such as post-study work visa, work permit, highly skilled Tier 1 visa and finally the Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), or permanent residency as some people better know it. However, I stopped short of acquiring the British citizenship despite being eligible for it. To me, my nationality is a part of my identity, and a reflection of who I am, and I could not get myself to part with it.

Coming back to India

Along the way I got married to my dear wife and started a family. So far so good. Then, in 2016, my wife and I took a big decision to come back to India due to various reasons which I penned down as part of another article. I wrote that article to share our experiences, thought process and rationale, and also to serve as a reminder in case we happened to have second thoughts in the future. I am sure you will agree that such decisions are usually difficult, and it is my belief that there is no right or wrong answer, and a lot of it boils down to your perception and what works for you and your family. Most of my friends who were also able to steer through the visa requirements, are now settled in the UK, and I believe, are doing well.

Re-evaluating life in India versus life in the UK

It has been over 6 years since we came back to India, and I have never regretted it. Of course, living and working in India has its own set of challenges, but then again, which country hasn't, and it is simply a matter of what your priorities are, and how much do they matter to you. After a recent work-cum-leisure trip to Europe, where we got a taste of the Western world once again, something inside me prompted me to re-evaluate our decision to come back from the UK to India. What followed were a few restless nights, discussions with my family, friends and well-wishers. And I am really thankful for the advice and perspective I received.

The problem statement I have is as follows:

Should we live in India, or should we live in the UK?

Whereas the decision to go to the UK in the first place, as well as to come back, were driven by excitement and impulse to a certain degree, I wanted to try and add in an element of structure and objectivity as I begin to re-think a potential move back to the UK. As part of a recent consulting assignment, I learned about the MECE framework - Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive, and decided to make use of the same for the purpose of addressing the question I had. The excitement and impulse factor, i.e. the heart, can still override the results (driven by the brain) but it is still a good scientific starting point.

Determining what our priorities are

The first step is to identify what priorities are important to us as a family, and how important each one is. To do so, we made a list of the priorities and assigned "weights" to each of them. Weights represent the relative importance of a parameter with respect to the others.

• Family ties (30%): Can we be closer to our parents and relatives and meet them often? Can we be around physically if they need us for anything? Can our children bond with their grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and other relatives?
• Comfortable lifestyle (20%): Can we get easy access to house help for cooking and cleaning? Are infrastructure and amenities good? Can we earn a decent salary to lead a comfortable lifestyle, live in a nice and spacious house, go on holidays, dine out etc., and, at the end of it, have some money to save for the rainy days.
• Work culture (10%): How is the work-life balance? Can we work in a stress-free work environment? Do we have considerate and respectful colleagues and managers who respect us? Are we regularly asked to work during weekends and vacations, and outside of regular working hours?
• Education (10%): Will our children have access to good education now and in the future at a reasonable cost?
• Healthcare (5%): Will we have access to timely and good healthcare at a reasonable cost?
• Cultural ties (5%): Can our children absorb our traditions, culture, values, rituals? Can we can celebrate festivals and events with our near and dear ones?
• Social circle (5%) Do we have a good social circle - friends who we can enjoy and hang out with, who are there for us when we need them (and vice versa)?
• Patriotism (5%): Do I feel at home? Do I strongly want to do something for my country? Think about the Bollywood movie "Swades"
• Weather (5%): Is the weather pleasant for most parts of the year? Is it too hot, of is it cold and wet?
• Civic sense (5%): Are fellow citizens courteous, polite and welcoming? Do people have patience or will they honk when stuck in traffic??Is there any racism?

If you are doing a similar evaluation, your list may be completely different to ours based on your situation and preferences, and this is perfectly fine. Or, it could be that you have the same parameters but with different weights, which is also fine.

I have decided to refrain from considering or commenting upon factors like economic and political situation in either country, and assumed that both countries are safe and secure to reside in.

Scoring the parameters

After identifying the parameters, we scored them on a scale of 1 to 5, once for India and once for the UK. IMPORTANT: These scores are based on our personal situation, perceptions and experiences, and are not to be generalized as representation from and for the entire country.

Deliberations about life in India

For us, family ties and having a comfortable lifestyle were the clear winners for the life in India path. While our parents and relatives are based in another city, it is a relatively short 2-hour flight away from where we live. Our children love our families and bond really well. We visit our families around twice a year, and they come and visit us as well. There is no hassle of filling cumbersome visa applications. A small concern is the rising domestic air fares though, given the fact that we are now a family of four full-fare paying passengers.

My experience so far regarding healthcare in India is that it is really good with top class facilities (based on where we live), but you have to be prepared to shell out a lot of money if you don't have medical insurance, or if you, or your spouse, are not covered by employer. Similarly, some of the private schools are quite good and have a holistic curriculum which is not based on rote learning; however, they do charge hefty fees. I do not have a lot of experience in dealing with government schools and medical facilities so would rather not comment.

Salaries in the IT sector in India are quite varied depending on the role, location and company. Generally speaking, there tends to be a bias towards students who pass out of premier colleges or towards those who work at a well-known brand. Because of tough competition, it is indeed very difficult to get into either, and sometimes mere talent is not enough. Extreme weather, insane levels of pollution, civic sense and work-life balance are some of the areas we could not allocate higher scores. In particular, work-life balance is an underrated consideration here in India, and it is taken for granted that your employee is available at your beck and call, whenever you need them irrespective of it being the weekend or their vacation. Sadly, in quite a few companies, including reputed ones, it is an accepted norm to be forever working late, and in fact seen as a sign of hard work and dedication!

Deliberations about life in the UK

Talking about the UK, the areas we thought in which the UK fares really well, and again this is based on our personal situation, perceptions and experiences, are good and free education and healthcare system (Go NHS!), excellent work-life balance (at least in the IT sector) and civic sense, generally speaking. Only on one or two occasions during the 10+ years I lived in the UK, was I required to work late. I had great colleagues and am still in touch with some of them.

In terms of family ties to our parents and families back home in India, and cultural exposure for our children, I think the huge distance between India and the UK, and the high cost of air tickets, would make it difficult for us to undertake frequent visits as much as we would have liked. In terms of social circle, we unfortunately did not have a lot of friends and felt a bit lonely at times.

Cost of living was, and still is, very high in London, and there was not much left after paying the bills, especially as we had to send our child to a nursery, which was quite expensive. Within the budget we had, we could only rent a small apartment, which is a third in size of our current one in India. We could not even imagine hiring a house help, and had to do all household chores ourselves. Weather-wise, we enjoyed the summers, although we would have hoped for a bit more sunshine throughout the year to keep the spirits high.

Weighted final scores

After having scored each of the parameters for India and the UK, as a final step we considered the scores in context of the respective weights assigned. For example, a rating of 4 on 5 for "Family ties" in India, would translate to 4 x 30% weightage = 1.2. Similarly, a rating of 3 on 5 for healthcare in India would mean 3 x 5% weightage = 0.15. Weighted scores help to ensure that the factors that matter the most to us get adequately reflected in the scoring exercise. The final weighted scores are as follows.

Conclusion

Based on the ratings, taken together with the respective weights, we saw that life in India and life in the UK are broadly at comparable levels, with the former appearing to have a marginal advantage over the latter. To be honest, each path has its unique set of advantages and disadvantages, and needs to be considered with the factors that one deems important. Like I earlier said, the impulse factor also needs to be considered. So, who knows, where I will be writing the next article from.

At the end of the day, you got to do whatever works for you and your family, and makes you happy. That's all that matters.

If you would like a copy of the Excel spreadsheet that I created to help us with the weighted scores calculations, please click here. For a pre-filled sample, please click here.