Calgon, Take Me Away!

When I first read the headline in this piece from the Gallup Organization, “Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S.”, I found it dismaying. I found even more reason to be distressed in the body of the piece:

While Gallup’s World Poll does not ask people about their political leanings, most of the recent surge in Americans’ desire to migrate has come among groups that typically lean Democratic and that have disapproved of Trump’s job performance so far in his presidency: women, young Americans and people in lower-income groups.

During the first two years of the Trump administration, a record-high one in five U.S. women (20%) said they would like to move to another country permanently if they could. This is twice the average for women during the Obama (10%) or Bush years (11%) and almost twice the level among men (13%) under Trump. Before the Trump years, there was no difference between men’s and women’s desires to move.

The 30% of Americans younger than 30 who would like to move also represents a new high — and it is also the group in which the gender gap is the largest. Forty percent of women younger than 30 said they would like to move, compared with 20% of men in this age group. These gender gaps narrow with age and eventually disappear after age 50.

At one level 40% of young women finding the United States so awful that they want to leave is alarming. But as I thought about it I found it sort of sardonically amusing. My recommendation: go live somewhere else, at least for a while.

I’ve lived in and/or spent considerable time in a number of countries other than the United States. Admittedly, I’ve never lived anywhere other than as a man of European descent but I suspect that most young Americans, particularly young American women, would find any other country in which they might live disappointing. Take Canada, the nearest and least foreign appearing neighboring country. IMO most young Americans would find living there bland and boring.

Of course there’s the problem that, unless they’re sent to another country by their U. S. employer, they’d find it difficult or even impossible to work in another country. I suggest trying Dubai. It would be particularly eye-opening, particularly for a young woman. Or maybe Brazil although language might be a problem.