There are many reasons people want to move to the United States, from attending university, seeking the opportunity for a better life to starting a business. There are even those that seek asylum from the persecution they endure in their home countries.
There are ultimately, a multitude of reason why more than 1 million people a year (according to a 2016 report). And according to pewresearch.com, “The United States has more immigrants than any other country in the world. Today, more than 40 million people living in the U.S. were born in another country.” Immigrants today account for 13.6% of the U.S. population. In fiscal year 2018, about 800,000 immigrants applied for naturalization.
Now, on the other hand, there is a group of people that choose to head in a different direction. This group of people are already United States citizens and they are making the choice to leave and seek greener pastures elsewhere.
Now before I get into any more about this group, let me give you a few facts about US passports. In 1990, only 4% of the US population held a passport. This number has steadily increased; in 2000, 7.2million, 2005 - 10.1 million, 2010 - 14.7million, and just last year, almost 21 million passports were issued. Let me put it another way. In 2019, the total amount of valid passports in circulation was 146.7 million. With the total US population at 328 million, that means that less than 1 out of every 3 citizens is in possession of a passport.
Back to our group of American citizens that made the choice to head the other way. Well, there are also a number of reasons why any single person decides to leave the United States. Just for the sake of clarification here, I’m not talking about those that renounce their American citizenship. I am simply mentioning the group of people that choose to Get Up and Out of their own country to live and work in another country.
One Quora search (yeah, Quora is great) yielding a plethora of results and I quickly found one that I’ll reference. According to J.Wes Ulm who is a MD/PhD and was trained at Harvard Med and MIT so, I think he qualifies: He says that most do it because it’s easier to start and raise a family abroad, it’s cheaper, usually free, to get a quality university education.
Many claim a better work-life balance, easier to start a business and even many said that they felt more secure in their job positions abroad. Also, many claim a reduction in stress at their workplace. Other factors included less crime and then there were those with cultural, ethnic and ancestral ties to the country they moved to.
Whatever the reason, many US citizens choose to leave the US for an undetermined amount of time and for a multitude of reasons. In 2016, roughly 6 million were living abroad. According to AETNA International.com, 40% head to Canada, Central and South America, 26% move to Europe, 14% to East Asia and the Pacific (Australia and NZ) and another 6% choose Central/South Asia or Africa.
Now, as you’ll find out today, our guest, Erik Olsen, an American born and raised in New York, choose to uproot his life and head to Europe, The Netherlands to be specific. One of the main reasons for his Exodus lies in his professional area of expertise - American History. You see, after many years of studying, reading, researching, learning and discovering the countless events that is the United States history, Erik has come to the harsh conclusion that the road that the United States has paved is not one that he wishes to continue walking down.
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Once again, thanks for joining us today.This has been The Get Up & Get Out PodcastI’ve been your host, Steve Kriseland remember…Get Up
Get Out
And Discover the world - on your terms!
