How many people would migrate under open borders? How would the world’s population distribution change? This is a difficult question to try to answer, but we can get an idea by conducting a survey and asking people whether they would like to migrate or not. Of course some of the people who say they wouldn’t like to migrate would end up migrating under open borders, and some of the people who say they would like to migrate would end up not migrating under open borders. But still, getting people’s opinion on the issue is a good place to start.
In a series of surveys conducted between 2015 and 2017, Gallup asked adults the question: “Ideally, if you had the opportunity, would you like to move permanently to another country, or would you prefer to continue living in this country?” The results of the surveys are summarized in the article More Than 750 Million Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could, by Neli Esipova, Anita Pugliese, and Julie Ray and published in December 2018.
Table 1 shows the percentage of adults in different world regions who want to move permanently to another country. Overall, 15% of adults in the world want to move permanently to another country. The figure is much higher—33%—in Sub-Saharan Africa. But it is not just adults in poor regions who want to move permanently: 21% of all adults in the European Union want to move permanently to another country, while almost 10% of adults in Australia/New Zealand/Oceania wish to do so. Perhaps surprisingly, only 8% of adults in South Asia want to move permanently to another country.
| Adults who want to move permanently (%) | |
|---|---|
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 33 |
| Latin America and Caribbean | 27 |
| Europe (non-European Union) | 26 |
| Middle East and North Africa | 24 |
| European Union | 21 |
| Commonwealth of Independent States | 15 |
| Northern America | 14 |
| Australia/New Zealand/Oceania | 9 |
| East Asia | 8 |
| South Asia | 8 |
| Southeast Asia | 7 |
| World | 15 |
Source: More Than 750 Million Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could.
There are some countries where half or more than half of the adults say they want to move permanently to another country; these countries are shown in Table 2. 71% of adults in Sierra Leone want to move permanently to another country. Two-thirds of Liberian adults want to move. Half of the adults in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and more than half the adults in Haiti, Albania, and El Salvador want to move permanently to another country. (There are also many countries, such as Nigeria, where the percentage of adults who want to move permanently to another country falls just below 50%.) Perhaps we can think of these countries as becoming “ghost” countries (like “ghost” towns, but larger) under open borders.
| Adults who want to move permanently (%) | |
|---|---|
| Sierra Leone | 71 |
| Liberia | 66 |
| Haiti | 63 |
| Albania | 60 |
| El Salvador | 52 |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo | 50 |
Source: More Than 750 Million Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could.
Recall the question asked by Gallup: “Ideally, if you had the opportunity, would you like to move permanently to another country, or would you prefer to continue living in this country?” To be honest, this is a strange question to ask. It’s as if we were to open borders but only allow people to migrate permanently or not at all. Of course, under open borders, people would be free to migrate temporarily as well. They could move to a country, live and work there for a couple of years, and then move back home (or move to a different country). We could imagine asking, then, how many people want to migrate permanently, how many want to migrate temporarily, and how many don’t want to migrate at all?
Some people in the group of people who want to migrate temporarily but not permanently may have said in response to Gallup’s question that they want to migrate permanently, while others may have said in response that they want to continue living in their home country. What this means is that the percentage of people who say in Gallup’s surveys that they want to move permanently to another country is an overestimate of the percentage of people who would say that they want to move permanently if they had also been given the option of temporary migration, and an underestimate of the percentage of people who would say that they want to move permanently or temporarily.
If people are given the option of temporary migration, then it’s likely that less than 15% of the world’s adults want to migrate permanently, but more than 15% want to migrate permanently or temporarily. Similarly, under open borders, it’s likely that less than 71% of Sierra Leonian adults want to move permanently to another country, but more than 71% of Sierra Leonian adults want to migrate permanently or temporarily. So it may be the case that more than 750 million worldwide would migrate permanently if they could, but more than that would migrate at least temporarily if they could.
Questions
- What percentage of the world’s adults say that they want to move permanently to another country, if they only have the choice of migrating permanently or not at all?
- Is the percentage of the world’s adults who would like to migrate permanently or temporarily less than or more than the answer to the previous question?
- What percentage of Haitian adults say that they want to move permanently to another country, if they only have the choice of migrating permanently or not at all?
- Is the percentage of Haitian adults who would like to migrate permanently or temporarily less than or more than the answer to the previous question?