Nearly Half of Young Arabs Have Considered Emigration, Survey Finds

More than 40 per cent of the region’s 200 million Arab youths are either actively considering or have considered emigrating to another country, this year’s Arab Youth Survey has found.

The survey, which is commissioned by Dubai communications agency Asda’a Burson Cohn & Wolfe, found that 47 per cent of young people in North Africa had considered emigration, with that figure rising to 63 per cent among youths living in the Levant, of which half said they wanted to leave permanently.

The highest recorded desire to emigrate was in Lebanon, where 77 per cent of respondents said they had considered leaving the crisis-stricken state, followed by Libya, Yemen and Iraq, each of which recorded between 65 and 69 per cent of youths wanting to leave.

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Meanwhile, more than 45 per cent listed the UAE as their destination of choice, for the ninth year running, ahead of the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

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