Leaving the country you were born in
About 281 million people live outside the country they were born in, roughly one person in thirty. The money they send home is larger than most countries’ economies.
Most people live their whole lives in the country they were born in. A significant minority do not. The International Organization for Migration, the UN’s migration agency, publishes the most complete picture of who moves, where and why, every two years in its World Migration Report.
The numbers
According to the 2024 report, there were about 281 million international migrants in 2020: people living in a country other than the one they were born in. That is about 3.6% of the world’s population, or roughly one person in thirty.
The money they send home is enormous. Migrants sent an estimated $831 billion in remittances in 2022, up from $791 billion in 2021. India received more than any other country, over $111 billion, the first time any country passed $100 billion. Mexico was second.
For many families in India, Mexico, Nigeria and elsewhere, money from a relative abroad pays for school fees, medical bills and the house being built a room at a time. For some countries, remittances bring in more foreign money than exports or aid.
Who moves, and why
Most migration is for work. People move from places where their labour earns little to places where it earns more, and the gap can be very large: the same work can pay many times more in a richer country. Others move to study, to join family or to marry. A smaller number are forced to move by war, persecution or disaster.
Migration is also not only from poor countries to rich ones. Large numbers of people move between neighbouring countries, between rich countries, and within regions.
What moving abroad does to a life
The research on migrants’ lives describes a familiar trade:
- Income usually rises, often sharply, though many migrants start in work below their qualifications, at least at first. Qualifications earned in one country are not always recognised in another.
- Family gets further away. Parents age at a distance; children may grow up with grandparents they rarely see. Migrants often describe the cost in missed weddings and funerals.
- Friendships restart. New arrivals often face years of loneliness before a new network forms, which is one reason migrants cluster with people from home.
- Identity shifts. People who move become, over time, a little foreign in both places: the new country and the one they left.
The same trade appears, smaller, in moves within a country. Moving from a small town to a large city for work brings many of the same gains and many of the same losses.
Questions people ask
Do most migrants go from poor countries to rich ones? Many do, but a large share of migration is between neighbouring countries, and between countries at similar levels of income. Moves within a region are often more common than moves across the world.
How much do migrants send home? It varies hugely, but for many families a migrant relative’s money is a large part of household income. Remittances are often sent in small amounts, many times a year, and are spent on school fees, health care, food and building homes.
Do migrants return? Many do, after years or decades abroad, often to retire or to start a business with savings earned abroad. Others intend to return and never do, as children grow up and settle in the new country.
In One Life
One Life is set in eight countries, from the United States to Nigeria, and the country you are born in shapes the whole life: the schools, the exams, the money, the prices, the health care and the odds of a long life. The game plays each in its own currency and language, and the differences are large.
“Stay close or move away?” is one of the family Life Questions. It asks a life whether to leave the place its parents live, with everything that comes with that: a new city, distance from home, a phone call instead of Sunday lunch, and, later, the question of who looks after your parents when they grow old.