700 million worldwide would like to move to US, Canada, France, UK

November 05 2009 by Liam Clifford

The US is still the top of where people would like to move to if given the chance.

New figures from a research project by Gallup show that over 700 million people worldwide would like to emigrate to another country.

The highest number of people were keen to move to the US, while moving to Canada, the UK and France were the joint second most popular destinations for prospective migrants.

The study involved conducting a poll of people’s attitudes to emigration in 135 countries around the world. ‘The grass is always greener’ sentiment was common among people of many countries, with people living in sub-Saharan Africa the most keen to move elsewhere.

Some 38 per cent of adults living in this region of Africa, which represents over 165 million people, said they would like to start a new life abroad.

The least likely to move abroad were people living in Asia, where only one in ten said they would move abroad if given the chance.

A quarter of the 700 million prospective migrants wanted to live in the US, while 45 million people said that moving to the UK, Canada or France would be preferable for them.

Third most popular was Spain, while 25 million people said they wanted to move to Australia.

See the latest Immigration News