ST : Singapore a top choice for migrants‏

Nov 5, 2009

Singapore a top choice for migrants

Gallup index shows S'pore population would jump to 13m if it takes in all who wished to come here

By Lin Zhaowei

SINGAPORE is a top immigration hot spot, according to a global survey conducted by Gallup.

If it were to take in all adults who wish to settle in the country, its adult population of 3.6 million would jump to 13 million, said the survey released this week.

Gallup arrived at this figure by using what it called the Potential Net Migration Index (PNMI).

The index is the estimated number of adults who wish to leave a country permanently subtracted from the estimated number who wish to immigrate to the country, as a proportion of the total adult population.

The higher a positive PNMI value, the greater the potential of net population gain, proportional to the population size.

Singapore emerged tops with the highest PNMI value of 260 per cent, followed by Saudi Arabia (180 per cent), New Zealand (175 per cent), Canada (170 per cent) and Australia (145 per cent).

At the other end of the scale, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's score was minus 60 per cent, which means that more people want to leave the country permanently than settle in it.

For the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, only Arab nationals and Arab expatriates were interviewed for the 2007-2009 survey, which polled about 260,000 people aged 15 and older in 135 countries.

Singapore's ranking in the PNMI may not be entirely surprising given its relatively small population size and strong and stable economy, analysts said.

According to the United Nations' 2009 Human Development Report, Singapore is already a popular immigration destination.

It ranked No. 10 in the world in terms of the share of immigrants as part of total population, at 35 per cent.

The UN report also showed that Singapore had a relatively low emigration rate of 6.3 per cent.

'If most of those who say they want to come here are mostly economic migrants from other Asian countries, I won't be surprised because Singapore's economy is doing quite well relatively,' Dr Chua Beng Huat, a sociology professor at the National University of Singapore, told The Straits Times when asked to comment on the Gallup survey findings.

On the whole, the survey found that some 700 million people - or 16 per cent of the world's population - would like to relocate permanently to another country, if they had the chance.

The United States was the most desired destination overall in terms of numbers - around 165 million adults would like to move there permanently if they could.

Other top destinations included Canada, Britain, France (all three with around 45 million potential migrants); Spain (35 million) and Saudi Arabia (30 million).

Sub-Saharan Africa was the region with the highest percentage of people who would like to emigrate, at around 38 per cent.

The corresponding figure for the Middle East and North Africa was 23 per cent, and 19 per cent and 18 per cent respectively for Europe and the Americas.

Those living in Asia were the least likely to emigrate, with only 10 per cent expressing a desire to do so.

Ms Neli Esipova, Gallup's director of research for global migration, said the findings showed that hundreds of millions of people around the world felt pulled or pushed towards countries other than their own.

'Who these potential migrants are, where they would like to go and why will continue to be crucial for leaders in countries of origin and destination to understand as they develop migration and development strategies during the economic crisis and well after,' she said.