One person · Thailand · arriving at 25

Does a migrant break even?

Not a population, and not an average: one person, from the year they arrive to the end of their life, with everything they pay counted against everything they cost. The answer depends almost entirely on the age they arrive at, and you can move it below.

Country of birth

Age at arrival

Discount rate

What a pound in forty years is worth today. 3.5% is the Green Book rate the Treasury uses for appraisal; the others are shown because the choice moves the answer and is not a fact.

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Thailand, arriving at 25: never breaks even

Present value at arrival: −£49,122
Undiscounted over the whole life: −£407,094
Paid in: £328,499
Cost: £377,620
Expected years lived from arrival: 58.2

The running total, discounted to the year of arrival. Where the line is below the axis this person has cost more than they have paid so far. It never crosses and stays crossed, so on these assumptions they do not break even.

This is one person on average behaviour, not a person. It applies this country’s employment rate, earnings distribution and benefit rate to a single life, so it describes the group’s average member rather than anybody in particular. Nothing here is an entitlement calculation and it cannot be used to assess an individual.

The same person at every arrival age

Arriving later means fewer years of British schooling and more years of work, so the figure climbs with age at arrival before falling away as the working years left run out. The highlighted bar is the age selected above.

Weighted by the arrival ages actually recorded for people born in Thailand, rather than by any single one of them, the figure is −£111,439. That is the number to use for this country as a whole; the bars above answer a different question, which is what one more arrival at a given age would be worth.