Why are we all leaving our Homeland?

The dream of owning a holiday home or investment property has become increasingly achievable for so many Brits in recent years but did you realise how many of us are moving abroad for good? I know I didn’t.

It seems that we are looking to live the dream in ever growing numbers yet when one probes into the motivation for our exodus it seems we express fewer good reasons for living abroad than used to be the case – it looks rather more as though our reasoning is ABH – "anywhere but here".  After all, if the population itself is a large enough number (and the UK boasts in excess of 60m of us) trends within a 10-15 year time-frame ought to be relatively static barring unexpected events – major political or economic upheaval, catastrophic natural disasters, etc. Yet our economy has been robust, we haven’t suffered a coup d’état as far as I’m aware and, except for the occasional flood, our country has not seen significant meteorological or geological upsets. Yet far more of us are leaving than returning to these shores as evidenced by the statistics for migration having regard to the country of origin of those coming or going:

What this shows is the net migration – the difference between those coming to the UK as against those leaving the UK – measured by their country of birth. It is the indigenous Brits who are clearly on their way out. What is also noticeable from the graph is the extent to which the new EU countries since 2003 have contributed to our population growth.

No politics, please – we’re British

Before I am accused of pandering to right-wing extremists let me make absolutely clear that none of this article is making any value judgement on what is good for the UK, those who leave nor on those who decide to make their home here. I am merely examining the statistics and seeing what they tell us: in this case, they say that the population of the UK has been expanding at a rate of around 200,000 each year AFTER over 100,000 Brits (by birth) have left.

So why are we rushing to the exits? Our economy has grown relentlessly, as Gordon Brown keeps reminding us; our political leaders have remained unchanged for 10+ years; and our houses have rocketed in value to almost unbelievable levels. We’ve never had it so good.

Frankly, the reasons for this are far from clear as the graph below shows. If anything, we have become more adventurous – prepared to leave before we have found that new job – or simply more cagey about answering the statisticians’ questions.

There has been a marked increase in those going abroad in order to seek work rather than because they already have a secure job to go to (in 1991 only 7% of those leaving the UK were off to find work whereas in the period since 1999 more than 20% of the émigrés stated that they were in this category). Similarly, the numbers of those failing to give a reason for their departure have also grown. The “loser” in the categories above is those accompanying others – clearly, it's no longer just wives and partners following their other halfs.

Are we alone?

Many of the OECD countries have experienced and continue to see growing populations so the UK is not unique in this respect. Both France and Germany, for example, have seen net annual immigration:

Germany, not surprisingly, saw a massive influx shortly after reunification in 1989/90 and further significant immigration in the early part of the 21st century but the trend has clearly been downward overall since those peaks.

France, with a population much the same as the UK at around 63m has seen similar trends to the UK albeit the absolute numbers are lower.

However, whilst the UK welcomed 563,000 new residents in 2005 France saw fewer than 115,000 arrivals in the same year – 80% fewer. Which, by definition, means far fewer French deserted their land for sunnier climes. It seems we Brits are becoming much less patriotic as time goes by – indeed, the number of us rushing away is increasing:

“In 2006, an estimated 400,000 people emigrated from the UK for a year or more. This is the highest estimate of emigration since the method to calculate Total International Migration (TIM) was introduced in 1991 and up from 359,000 in 2005.

In the same period an estimated 591,000 migrants arrived to live in the UK for at least a year. Again, this was higher than all other years since 1991 but only slightly higher than the 2004 estimate of 586,000.” (Source: National Statistics website, 2008).

I can't help feeling that, when combined with recent surveys showing how happy are those who have relocated abroad, many of us have found a much nicer way to organise our lives.  We can work from home, wherever home may be, we can visit the UK relatively inexpensively and at short notice and we can enjoy all the benefits of climate, way of life and cuisine associated with areas of the world that were largely inaccessible to our parents.  It's hardly surprising that a few stealth taxes is perhaps all it takes to push even more of us to make that decision.

Where are we heading, then?

There are no great surprises in the stats for where we all want to go and live:

Top 15 countries of next residence of all emigrants, 2005–2006 combined

English speaking countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the USA feature prominently as do Spain (which already has a large ex-pat community) and France with whom we have always loved to make war but whose lifestyle and culture we also admire!

As the above statistics are updated in the next few years expect to see some new entries such as Portugal and Cyprus both of which are surprisingly absent from the above list, Croatia and even, perhaps, Turkey or The Caribbean.

One thing is for certain – nothing in today’s UK economy or political scene looks likely to encourage us to stay any more than the past 10-15 years have.

If you're thinking of making the move to somewhere more hospitable, warmer and more hassle-free have a look through some of the options:

Portugal

Florida

Cyprus

Or have a look through our numerous local property and living guides here.