Emigration from the UK

a research report (Home Office Number 68) by Rosemary Murray, David Harding, Timothy Angus, Rebecca Gillespie and Harsimran Arora

Summary

This report sets out to summarise the key aspects of the scale and nature of long-term emigration from the UK, including some trends over the last 20 years. It draws on a range of information sources, including published academic research, and on survey data produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) including Long-Term Migration estimates (LTIM) and International Passenger Survey (IPS) estimates.¹ The report also presents some associations between economic factors and emigration by particular groups

Key findings:

• Of those emigrating from the UK in 2011 with an intention to change their normal place of residence and to stay there more than a year, around 43 per cent (149,000) were British citizens; the remaining 57 per cent (most of whom were returning to their country of origin) comprised almost equal numbers of European Union (EU) citizens and non-EU citizens.
• The majority of emigrants from the UK leave for work-related reasons (72% of those migrating from the UK who provided a reason, in 2011).
• Over the last ten years, more than a third of British, EU and non-EU citizens who emigrated, left to take up definite jobs but a much smaller proportion (18%) of British citizens compared to the other two groups (34% of EU citizens and 42% of non-EU citizens) left to look for work.
• A large and increasing proportion of British citizens emigrating from the UK are those from professional or managerial occupations and this may have implications for the availability of skills in the UK. In 2010 almost one-half (48%) of British emigrants were previously in professional or managerial roles.
• There appears to be an association between changes in levels of British and EU citizens’ emigration from the UK and changes in both levels of unemployment and relevant exchange rates. Emigration of non-EU citizens from the UK appears less associated with these economic factors.
• Migration of EU citizens to the UK is much more ‘circular’ than of non-EU citizens reflecting the greater freedom of movement of EU citizens, and lower distances and travel costs to return home. Larger proportions of non-EU migrants who came to the UK have settled permanently.

Australia has consistently been the most popular destination country for British emigrants over the last 20 years. Other key destinations for British emigrants include Spain, the USA, France, Germany, Canada and New Zealand. An estimated 4.7 million UK-born people live abroad with the largest stocks in Australia, the USA, Canada, Spain and Ireland. The UK ranks eighth highest in the world in terms of the number of its nationals living abroad (World Bank, 2011).

British citizens, responding to the IPS, most frequently said their main reason² for emigrating was to take up a definite job. Most were planning to be away for four years or more.

The majority of British people emigrating abroad are of working age (89% in 2008 to 2010). Despite this, a lot of research on UK emigration has focused on those retiring overseas, particularly within Europe. There was a sharp increase in British people over retirement age, moving abroad in 2005 and 2006, reaching a peak of 22,000 in 2006. This has since fallen back to previous levels of around 4,000 to 8,000 retired British people emigrating each year. The growth in house values in the UK compared to elsewhere in Europe may have enabled British property owners to sell up and live more cheaply abroad, while enjoying a better climate and quality of life. However, this may have changed since the recession.

Numbers of British citizens going abroad for formal study have remained around five to ten thousand a year despite the increase (by around one-fifth over the last ten years) in numbers of British people going to university (Universities UK, 2011). Recent changes to English university fees may lead more British citizens to go abroad for study in the future. A higher proportion of EU citizens emigrating from the UK over the last ten years, compared to British or non EU citizens, were emigrating for formal study.

There appears to be an inverse association between British emigration and unemployment in the UK. In general, as UK unemployment falls, more British people emigrate and when unemployment in the UK is high, fewer British people emigrate. This seems counter-intuitive but might be partly due to unemployed people having fewer resources to fund a move abroad and also due to simultaneous downturns in the economies of some of the key destinations for British emigrants. This association varies depending on where people are emigrating to, with the relationship appearing stronger among those emigrating to the EU (dominated by flows to Spain and France) in the mid- to late-2000s and weaker among those going to the USA. It might imply that economic recovery both in the UK and in key destination countries would lead to more British citizens emigrating for work. Among non-British citizens who emigrated from the UK between 1991 and 2010, around 78 per cent were leaving after a stay of between one and four years. This proportion was similar among EU and non-EU migrants but it only includes those who actually left the UK. A higher proportion of non-EU migrants remain permanently in the UK compared to EU migrants.

Among non-EU migrants to the UK, citizens of ‘New Commonwealth’ countries, particularly those from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, were much more likely to stay permanently in the UK when compared to migrants from ‘Old Commonwealth’ countries such as Australia and New Zealand. Therefore, although outward migration of foreign nationals depends to a large extent on previous inward migration, it is not simply the overall level of migration into the UK that has affected later emigration (and net migration) but also the relative proportions coming from different areas of the world and the extent to which their migration tends to be circular or permanent.

Associations between emigration from the UK and economic factors such as employment and currency exchange rates suggest that emigration of EU citizens is more sensitive to such factors than emigration of non-EU citizens. There appears to be little relationship between emigration of non-EU citizens from the UK and changes in economic conditions in the UK relative to source countries. It may be that even in the recent economic downturn, for migrants from poorer countries, the UK still offers more attractive economic opportunities than returning home. Also in practical terms, travel within Europe is generally cheaper and quicker than from further afield and EU citizens have free movement, enabling them to easily leave and return to the UK later if they choose to.

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¹ The estimates relate to ‘long-term migrants’ using the following definition from the United Nations Statistics Division 1998): ‘long-term migrants are persons who move to a country other than that of their usual residence for a period of at least one year, so that the country of destination effectively becomes their new country of usual residence’.
² The IPS asks for an individual’s ‘main reason’ for migrating and the data reflects just one reason for each respondent even though many may be migrating for more than one reason.

Full text (PDF 62pp)

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