Unchecked migration would see Singapore swell, Haiti halve

Agence France-Presse

•  REPRINT THIS ARTICLE
•  SEND AS AN E-MAIL
•  POST A COMMENT
• 

ALSO IN THIS SECTION

• Alleged American sex offender deported
• Canadian Tamils say Ottawa being too harsh on migrants
• Criticism mounts over France's Roma expulsion
• Obama family 'easy to please', says White House chef
• 7 OFWs jailed in Maldives pardoned
• US deports almost 400,000 in 2009
• Afghanistan tops food insecurity index, RP no. 52
• US threatens to sue Arizona sheriff over immigration probe
• RP re-elected vice chair in UN body on sustainable devt
• Malaysian caught with 14 kilos of shabu at NAIA

ADVERTISEMENT

Most Read

WASHINGTON—The populations of Singapore, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia would triple if everyone who wants to move there were allowed to, a poll released Friday by Gallup shows.

At the opposite end of the scale, Sierra Leone, Haiti and Zimbabwe would see their populations more than halved if migrants were allowed to leave at will, the poll found.
Gallup researchers interviewed nearly 350,000 adults in 148 countries between 2007 and 2010 to calculate each country's potential net migration score -- the number of adults who would like to leave a country minus the number who would like to move in, seen as a proportion of the total adult population.
They found that Singapore's population of 4.8 million would increase by 219 percent, New Zealand's population of four million would rise by 184 percent and Saudi Arabia's population of 26 million would soar by 176 percent if everyone who wants to come in and wants to leave, could.
Switzerland made it onto the list, which was first compiled in 2009, for the first time this year.
Some 800,000 of Switzerland's six million citizens said they would like to permanently leave the country, while some 10 million foreigners said they would move there if they had the chance.
The hefty influx of migrants to Switzerland versus the scant outflow from the Alpine country would mean its population would more than double, according to the Gallup poll.
The preferred destination of most would-be migrants is still the United States, although the already large US population -- 300 million inhabitants -- means that the impact is less acutely felt, Gallup said.
The United States is number 14 on the net migration list. If everyone could come into the United States that wanted to, and all those who wished to leave did, the US population would rise by around 60 percent.
At rock-bottom is Sierra Leone, the west African country that is still struggling to recover from a 10-year civil war that ended in early 2002.
If everyone who wanted to leave Sierra Leone could, and anyone who wanted to move there did, the country's population would plunge by 56 percent.
Haiti would lose 51 percent of its population, Zimbabwe would lose 47 percent, Nigeria and Ethiopia would each lose 46 percent and Liberia's population would fall by 45 percent.

---