For Expats in China: Smog Perks

As a thick smog hung over Beijing last year, Stephanie Giambruno and her husband decided it was time for her and their two girls to return to the U.S. Giambruno’s husband stayed in China for his job as general manager of a global technology company. He now Skypes with the family twice a day, she says, and his employer lets him travel to Florida once a month to see them. While it’s hard to be apart, Giambruno says Beijing’s record air pollution left them no choice. “It’s not a way to live, to keep your baby inside with an air filter running,” she says.

As bad air chokes Chinese cities, some expatriates are leaving families in their home countries, the latest sign of pollution’s rising cost to the more than half a million foreigners working in China and the multinationals seeking to retain them. Smog in Beijing exceeded government pollution standards most days last year, and environment ministry statistics show that 71 of 74 Chinese cities failed to meet air quality standards. The World Health Organization said in March that air pollution contributed to 7 million deaths worldwide in 2012, with 40 percent of those occurring in the Asia-Pacific region dominated by China.