The relationship between homesickness, age, nationality, marital status, the amount of time spent in the Netherlands, and the amount of time spent abroad was studied in a group of employees (N = 171) working for the Dutch division of a multinational high-tech company in the Netherlands. Variables found to be significantly related to homesickness were age, nationality, and the number of years spent abroad and in the Netherlands. The latter variable appeared to be the only independent predictor of homesickness. Results suggest it is not so much the newcomers who are at risk for developing homesickness but those employees in their late 30s living 6 to 8 years in a foreign country. Also, those coming from a culture and environment that differs considerably from the culture they actually have to work and live in are definitely far more at risk for developing homesickness than those coming from rather similar cultures.
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