The Top 10 Countries People Don’t Want to Leave

Published: February 5, 2024 by Colman Andrews

One of the most controversial and emotionally charged issues facing wealthy nations today is the matter of immigration. People who live in poor countries and/or countries torn by warfare or facing famine or out-of-control gang activity quite naturally gravitate to countries where they believe they’ll be able to make some money and avoid the daily threat of injury or death. Increasingly, too, there are climate refugees, people fleeing places subject to severe flooding or drought, wildfires, and other deleterious results of global warming.

At the same time, the countries people might gravitate to quite naturally desire to control immigration, to impose some kind of order on their acceptance of refugees (or newcomers of any kind), and to ensure the safety and integrity of their own people while offering whatever humanitarian aid is possible to those who have fled their homelands. (People don’t always migrate because of unfavorable conditions, of course. Many move, often only temporarily, for employment opportunities, to study, to join family or friends, or, having already emigrated, to return to their home country.)

According to a report by the International Organization for Migration, an agency of the United Nations, there were some 281 million international migrants in the world in 2020, the latest year for which data is available. And more than a million migrants arrive in the U.S. every year, and the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey estimates that as of 2022, about 13.9% of our country’s population was foreign-born. We receive more people from other places than any other nation. (Check the number of new green card holders in every state.)

There are some places that people just don’t seem to want to leave in any great number. To assemble a list of the ten countries with the smallest percentage of emigrants in 2023, 24/7 Tempo consulted a study conducted by Top Move, a Canadian moving services company. The company drew data concerning population and number of emigrants from each country’s census bureau and other relevant governmental sources, then calculated the percentage of emigrants by population. The data used was the most recent available officially, and covered the year 2023.

On the other side of things, the countries that lost the largest percentage of their population to emigration in 2023 were, in descending order, Poland, Greece, Romania, Kazakhstan, and Hungary. In terms of the total number of those who left, however, Russia was No. 1, losing about 25 million people.

Here is the list of the top 10 countries people don’t want to leave: