The No-Nonsense Guide to International Migration

Either way, they seem to do quite well out of it financially, even if this puts enormous strain on the family, particularly on the isolated wives (there are very few female astronauts)34.

termed ‘satellite kids’. There is some debate over whether the people in this hypermobile élite constitute a new globalized ‘overclass’, or have been forced into the astronaut lifestyle because they find it difficult to do business in Canada.

At the other end of the transnational scale are the jet-setting entrepreneurs. Many wealthy Chinese have extensive business interests in Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China and elsewhere in Asia, but prefer the security of a passport from Australia, or Canada, or New Zealand/Aotearoa. They therefore emigrate with their families then travel back and forth to work – and are commonly referred to as ‘astronauts’. In this case paradoxically it is the family that has emigrated rather than the worker. Prior to the handover of Hong Kong to China, large numbers of these flexible families settled in Vancouver, taking advantage of Canada’s business migration program. Children of the astronauts are often