It’s as if America wasn’t the paradise the Right tries to tell us. A Gallup poll shows that a lot of young people want to escape our dystopia.
For the second straight year, about one in five Americans say they would like to leave the U.S. and move permanently to another country if they could. This heightened desire to migrate is driven primarily by younger women.
In 2025, 40% of women aged 15 to 44 say they would move abroad permanently if they had the opportunity. The current figure is four times higher than the 10% who shared this desire in 2014, when it was generally in line with other age and gender groups.
A lot of young women want out. It’s hard to blame them.
Young American men don’t feel the same degree of alienation. It also seems to be an American phenomenon — women in other countries aren’t as interested in fleeing their homeland for somewhere else.
The growing trend in younger women in the U.S. looking to leave their country is not evident in other advanced economies. Across 38 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the percentage of younger women who say they would like to migrate has held relatively steady for years, typically averaging between 20% and 30%.
For much of the late 2000s and early 2010s, younger U.S. women were less likely than their peers abroad to want to move. That changed around 2016. Since then, they have been more likely than younger women in other wealthy countries to say they would leave their homeland for good. By contrast, U.S. men aged 15 to 44 continue to be less likely than average to want to migrate compared with their peers in the OECD.
It’s almost as if women have noticed that we’ve been denying them autonomy and rights.
Too bad there’s no data on the racial, ethnic or educational breakdown of these women. The 15-44 age group is interesting in that these are the prime childbearing years. If MAGA wants American women to have more kids, they’re doing the exact opposite of what’s necessary to entice them to become mothers.
The annual happiness survey has the Scandinavian nations sweeping the winners as the happiest nations on Earth. The U.S. has sunk to 24th. Sooner or later there will be a reckoning. Both for the GOP and the Democrats. Mexico has broken into the top 10.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2025-world-happiness-report-us-lowest-ranking/
My two very bright granddaughters (ages 13 & 10) have researched educational opportunities overseas, and have determined that they want to attend college in Scotland, Ireland or England. Their parents will probably follow.
This old woman and her husband both want to leave as well. If they go, perhaps we will.
The other thing US women aren’t doing is reproducing.
There are a lot of reasons for this but a lot of them are a result of how difficult and unpleasant it is to live in the USA today.
These would be falling standards of living, general misogyny, and the feeling that there isn’t any future for the USA that anyone wants to live in.
The fundies/GOP are vaguely aware of this but don’t have any plans to fix this problem.
In fact, their solution is to make it a lot worse.
The current War on Migrants and Immigration removes the reason why the USA isn’t facing a demographic crisis of falling population.
If we don’t reproduce very much and don’t let in immigrants, then our population will eventually inevitably fall like those in much of Asia and Europe.
Source: I made it up
I’ve crossed into the older category, but I’m a man who wants out. I sympathize, ladies.
Count me as one who wants out. But my wife won’t go.
@3 magistramarla
My 11yo granddaughter plans to go to University in France. But that’s been her plan for a while now. Her other grandparents live in Compiègne.
How are expatriate voting rights holding up?
Young women wanting to permanently leave the corporate states of America is not surprising. We have a few known rapists in the highest offices, of course women are saying they are done.
It’s just another version of “Would you prefer to be lost in the woods with a bear or a man?” Of course they prefer the bear.
I know two young women who have already left the country that elects rapists. One is very happy living in Oz, and the other moved herself and her 12 year old daughter from Florida to France. They love France, with its healthcare, lack of Florida men, and delicious foodstuffs.
If one leaves, one should probably become a citizen of their new country; cf. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/us-citizens-and-resident-aliens-abroad
“If you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien, the rules for filing income, estate, and gift tax returns and paying estimated tax are generally the same whether you are in the United States or abroad. You are subject to tax on worldwide income from all sources and must report all taxable income and pay taxes according to the Internal Revenue Code.
Many Americans living abroad qualify for special tax benefits, such as the foreign earned income exclusion and foreign tax credit, but they can only get them by filing a U.S. return. For further details, see Publication 54, Tax Guide for U.S. Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad.
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U.S. taxpayers who own foreign financial accounts must report those accounts to the U.S. Treasury Department, even if the accounts don’t generate any taxable income. Taxpayers should file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) electronically by April 18, 2022, using the BSA e-filing system. For further details see report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR).
Taxpayers must also report virtual currency transactions to the IRS on their tax returns; these transactions are taxable by law just like any other property transaction. For more information see virtual currencies.”
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Interestingly, Eritrea is the only other country that similarly taxes its foreign-residing citizens; cf. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/2/20/eritreas-diaspora-tax-is-funding-violence-and-oppression
(So, only two countries on the planet do that, and the USA is one of them)
The backward, irrational superstition that is evangelical Christianity regards women as chattel, livestock, and responsible for our expulsion from the garden of Eden. Disgusting.
@11 John Morales
^^ This, and you should renounce your citizenship of the US. Else you still have to file taxes.
I’m a Dutch citizen, but I went to high school in the US, and had (yes, past tense!) a green card. Upon graduating I GTFO out of that hellhole… But people told me: “keep your green card, it may come in useful!” Only a few years ago I found out I still had to file 25 years of taxes to the US… for a total of $0 to the US, and several $1000 to the tax advisor I hired…