The FINANCIAL — In my last article we learned that the US was seen as the greatest threat to world peace in 2013, nearly universally.
The FINANCIAL — In my last article we learned that the US was seen as the greatest threat to world peace in 2013, nearly universally. Results from another question in thatsurvey suggestthat respondents’ threat assessments and immigration desires might be mutually exclusive: according to this year’s Global Barometer, more people would move to the US than any other country, given the chance.
As the Georgian member of Gallup International, GORBI is responsible for conducting the WIN/Gallup International annual global End of the Year survey. Started in 1977 under the chairmanship of Dr. George Gallup, it has been conducted annually for nearly four decades. This last December more than 65 thousand people were polled worldwide, including a thousand Georgians, on their general and specific attitudes on the present and future.
We asked respondents, “If there were no barriers to living in any country of the world, which country would you like to live in?” Despite America’s reputation as excessively warlike or threatening it still topped the list of the greatest immigration destinations by being 9% of the world’s choice. The next two runners up are two other English-speaking ex-colonies – Australia (7%) and Canada (7%). The rest of the top 5 are Switzerland (6%) and France (4%).
Where would you live?
United States 9%
Australia 7%
Canada 7%
Switzerland 6%
France 4%
I would not want to move 38%
Despite these countries being something of an immigration magnet, a plurality of the world simply wants to stay where they are (38%). This number of course varies quite a bit by country. Georgia, for instance, is in tenth place on the “Happy where I am” chart with 60% of its population. Globally the countries with the most geographically satisfied people are Thailand (73%), Algeria (70%) and Morocco (70%). At the bottom of the list are Bangladesh (4%), Afghanistan (21%), and (a surprise to me) Ukraine (22%).
Out of curiosity I looked at how many current citizens of the world’s immigration magnets were happy where they are. Not surprisingly, their geographic satisfaction is higher than the mean, but it varies more than I expected. Less than half of Americans are happy with where they are and less than a third of the French would live in France if they were given their dream options (which are Canada (14%), the US (11%) and Australia (9%)). On the other hand, a majority of Canadians and Australians would stay put if given freedom of movement – 62% and 60% respectively.
"I would not want to move."
United States 46%
Australia 60%
Canada 62%
Switzerland 51%
France 29%
Numbers on the table titled “I would not want to move” include answers of “I would not want to move,” as well those referring to the survey country; i.e. 34% of Canadians “would not want to move,” and 28% “would live in Canada.” All surveys of this scale have margins of error of around 3% with 95% confidence.
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