Who Are You

So many people ask me 'so what's Dubai like?'. To give you some stats read below and find out what a research company discovered when they were employed by Time Out Dubai to conduct a survey of over 600 residents from various backgrounds. Some interesting statistics which may answer your questions:

• The cost of rent is shooting up faster than the Burj Dubai and we are extremely unhappy about it – so unhappy, in fact, that a whopping two thirds of residents would consider leaving as a result.
• 80 per cent of Dubaians are still in rented accommodation. Forty-two per cent of us get a company housing allowance, with that figure rising to almost 60 per cent for Westerners
• Fifty per cent of Dubaians work more than 50 hours per week, and 20 per cent of that total are putting in 70-plus hours a week. Further compounding this misery, 42 per cent of the lowest-paid workers (US$2,132 and below) work between 50 and 70 hours a week, while the figure is 27 per cent for the highest earners (US$8,000 plus a month).
• Forty-three per cent of us are overweight for starters and we’re getting fatter. Twenty-five per cent of us never do any exercise and 41 per cent of us do less than three hours a week.
• Anyone who has sampled the somewhat dubious pleasures of one of Dubai’s many lowbrow bars won’t be surprised to learn that 57 per cent of us drink, with that figure rising to 84 per cent for Westerners – 20 per cent of whom drink more than 15 units of alcohol (one unit equals one measure of spirits, half a pint of beer, or one small glass of wine) a week.
• Over a quarter of us smoke. Arabs smoke the heaviest – 45 per cent smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day, whereas Westerners are more likely to be social smokers – 39 per cent smoke fewer than four cigarettes a week.
• Fifty-two per cent are happy, 13 per cent are unhappy, and 34 per cent are neither happy nor unhappy

So who are we?

We work hard, we play hard; our doctor tells us we’re out of shape physically, and psychologists tell us we may one day lose the plot mentally if we don’t recalibrate our daily schedules. We struggle to pay our rent, we hate sitting in traffic; we have a whole heap of people earning a lot more than us, but also even more people making less money and having to do even more to earn it below us. The era of the generous expat package is over for many of us, but things could be worse – when all is said and done, we’re still here and that’s for a reason – we’re probably earning more than we would in our home countries, or at least taking advantage of opportunities that wouldn’t be available to us elsewhere. We’re a mixed bag of people from all walks of life trying to better ourselves, and doing so with varying degrees of success. Despite our frustrations we’re happy and we are – shock horror – actually quite normal.

*All information from Time Out Dubai, 2 August 2006. www.timeoutdubai.com