40% of young women would like to leave the U.S., with Canada the top destination: poll

A new Gallup poll has found that in the past two years, more Americans want to leave their country than at any other time in the past two decades. And young women are more than twice as likely to want to get out than young men, with 40 per cent saying they’d like to go.

Canada remains the preferred destination for younger American women looking to leave, with 11 per cent of those since 2022 naming it as their top destination, ahead of New Zealand, Italy and Japan, all at five per cent.

The Washington, D.C. based pollster notes in its survey that the question asks about desire to migrate, so the findings reflect that rather than intentions. “Still, the data indicate that millions of younger American women are increasingly imagining their futures elsewhere,” it says.

In all, one in five Americans say they would like to leave the U.S. and move permanently to another country, a figure almost twice as high as when Gallup started asking the question in 2008.

But the split between the sexes is widening. Among men aged 45 and older, just eight per cent indicate a desire to leave. Women in that age group are more likely than men to want to go, with 14 per cent saying yes.

The divide among younger Americans is even more stark. Of men aged 15 to 44, just 19 per cent said they wanted to leave their homeland. But for women in that age bracket the number was 40 per cent, down from 44 per cent the year before, but up from just 29 per cent in 2023.

The report noes that the percentage of younger women wanting to move to another country first rose decisively in 2016, the final year of U.S. President Barack Obama’s second term. That year, Gallup surveyed the U.S. in June and July, after both parties’ presumptive nominees were set for the November election, which Donald Trump went on to win.

“Desire to migrate continued to climb afterward, hitting 44 per cent in President Joe Biden’s last year in office and remaining near that level in 2025,” the report notes. “This suggests a broader shift in opinion among younger women, rather than a solely partisan one.”

Gallup says it has been measuring the same topic in other countries over the same time period, but has never seen a gender gap like the one between young men and women in the United States.

“The growing trend in younger women in the U.S. looking to leave their country is not evident in other advanced economies,” it said. “Across 38 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the percentage of younger women who say they would like to migrate has held relatively steady for years, typically averaging between 20 per cent and 30 per cent.”

In fact, it notes that for much of the late 2000s and early 2010s, younger U.S. women were less likely than their peers abroad to want to move.

The survey also found that the desire to leave the U.S. has become increasingly politicized since 2017. “In 2025, there is a 25-point gap in the desire to migrate between Americans who approve and those who disapprove of the country’s leadership,” it said.

Gallup found that, between 2008 and 2016, migration aspirations were similar regardless of views toward the country’s leadership. After Trump’s election, 2017 marked the first time this gap exceeded 10 points. During his first term, the difference in migration aspirations between those approving and disapproving of national leadership averaged 14 points.

Under Biden, the gap narrowed to eight points, but then climbed to 25 points in 2025, the first year of Trump’s second term in office.

“Younger women’s much stronger orientation to the Democratic Party than other age and gender groups … helps explain some of the differences in desire to move abroad,” the report noted. “So far in 2025, 59 per cent of women aged 18 to 44 identify as or lean Democratic, compared with 39 per cent of younger men, 53 per cent of older women and 37 per cent of older men.”

The survey also found that people wanting to leave were almost equally as likely to be married as single, and to have children versus having none. However, it noted that Americans with lower confidence in institutions such as the government, judiciary, military and elections are consistently more likely to express a desire to leave the country.

“Over the past decade, younger women have not only shown the largest increase in wanting to move abroad but also have experienced the steepest drop in institutional confidence of any age or gender group,” it said.

The survey involved 1,000 people interviewed by landline and mobile telephone in July, and is considered to have a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

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