Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Global Migration Trends: 700 Million Desire To Live Overseas Permanently

If migration would be liberalized, some 700 million people is likely move overseas permanently. That's based on Gallup's estimates...

``Gallup finds about 16% of the world's adults would like to move to another country permanently if they had the chance. This translates to roughly 700 million worldwide -- more than the entire adult population of North and South America combined."


And the most preferred destination for global immigrants would be the US.

Again from
Gallup, The United States is the top desired destination country for the 700 million adults who would like to relocate permanently to another country. Nearly one-quarter (24%) of these respondents, which translates to more than 165 million adults worldwide, name the United States as their desired future residence. With an additional estimated 45 million saying they would like to move to Canada, Northern America is one of the two most desired regions.

But of course, while the US would be the most desired destination, one would have to reckon with their prospective emigrants. Simply said, while the world sees the US as their prime location for immigration, several Americans would opt to to live overseas.


Here Gallup measures prospective net migration flows via Potential Net Migration Index.


According to Gallup, ``The Potential Net Migration Index is the estimated number of adults who would like to move permanently out of a country subtracted from the estimated number who would like to move into it, as a proportion of the total adult population. The results are based on nationally representative surveys of more than 260,000 adults worldwide. The higher the resulting positive PNMI value, the larger the potential net adult population gain. In Turkey, for example, subtracting the estimated 7 million adults who would like to move abroad from the 2 million adults who would like to move to Turkey and dividing that number by the total adult population (52 million) results in a PNMI value of -10%."

``Across the 135 countries surveyed between 2007 and 2009, Singapore posts the highest Potential Net Migration Index of all countries and areas, with a net migration index value of +260%. Saudi Arabia (+180%), New Zealand (+175%), Canada (+170%), and Australia (+145%) round out the top five.


``Interestingly, the United States, which is the top desired destination among all potential migrants, does not make the top five in terms of potential net population growth. The United States' net migration value of +60% places it farther down the list, after Canada and several other developed nations that dominate the top of the list. One important caveat to consider, however, is that the population size of a destination country is related to its ranking.


``Developing countries, in contrast, dominate the bottom of the list. The countries with the highest negative Potential Net Migration Index values are the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) (-60%), Sierra Leone (-55%), and Zimbabwe (-55%), Haiti (-50%), and El Salvador (-50%)."


Gallup estimates a potential net migration index for the Philippines as -20.


The top 5 nations with the largest positive net migration index are commodity exporting countries except for Singapore. Moreover, 4 of the 5 are in Asia (except Saudi-maybe the preferred choice for most of Muslim Migrants) and are economies that have been ranked as economically free, i.e. Saudi Arabia 59th, Singapore 2nd, Australia 3rd, New Zealand 5th and Canada 7th (Heritage Foundation)

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