Category Archives: Immigration

Expats and immigrants in the GloWbE corpus

 

In particular, when people move from less wealthy nations (for example, Bangladesh, Haiti, and Mexico) to more wealthy nations, they tend to be described as immigrants. When they move from more wealthy nations (for example, the US, the UK, and Australia or “The West” generally) to any other country, they are more likely to be labelled expats. Furthermore, people who move across borders without highly valued skill sets are labelled immigrants (and sometimes called low skill or unskilled immigrants), although there is discussion of high-skilled immigrants as well. In contrast, expats are generally assumed to have wealth and/or some type of highly valued skill set. In short, upon arrival, expats are often elites in their new homes.

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