Shocked so many young people seem to be moving abroad

[lonielou]

First off, I know this anecdotal and perhaps someone here will have stats on this but I have one DD, been chatting to her tonight. She is 23, her school year are 23/24 now and we were chatting about what everyone from her small school are doing now. She was in a class of 14 at a prep school in south west London, we have discovered of her class

2x Live in Australia
1x USA
1x Hong Kong
1x Dubai
1x Kuwait
1x Germany
1x France

That leaves 5, DD is one of those and looking to move in the future but is still studying.

DD has no contact with 1 of these people so in theory could be living abroad.

Now I know this is anecdotal and she may just be in a particularly adventurous group but I also know several friends with kids living abroad, Australia and the Middle East seeming to be the big ones.

AIBU to be shocked by this? It feels like a lot of young people (all with the degrees or doing degrees) who could contribute so much to society just leaving!

Not surprised
All three of my kids are planning to move abroad ( they are late teens / early twenties)

In the UAE, yes, women can dress however they like, although many buildings have a dress code requiring shoulders and knees to be covered (for both men and women). This is quite common in many Asian countries, not just Muslim ones. I don't know the first thing about Kuwait, though.

As a poll from a private school in sw London, it's not really indicative of our society. Children from state schools less likely to move.also they may return at some point. No country is problem free,they may have closer ties when they have a family later o 9

There are a few things that make this unsurprising:

1. SW London: in DS class only 20% of the class have a parent originally born in the UK. Young adults growing up in internationally mobile families are likely to move around a bit.
2. It's always been this way for London young adults; many of my class had some period of living overseas whether for travel, work or further education; 15% of my class left during secondary school to move overseas with family. Most came back, about 10% settled overseas that I'm aware of. Some of our young married family members are living overseas at the moment and plan to move back in 3-5 years when they are ready to have kids.
3. The globalised workforce has been actively encouraged for decades by most western governments. The natural consequence of international companies working across borders is that companies offer opportunities overseas.
4. To the person wondering, believe the hype about dogshit. It's out of control and for some reason councils are convinced that nobody cares about it not being cleared up.

Not shocked at all. The UK has been going to ratshit for a while. We left in 2020 and never looked back.

Not necessarily. It seems to be the wealthier people are the better life they can sustain in the UK, lots of 'poorer' people are moving abroad, particularly to Europe. Property is much much cheaper in some countries and many people (including us) can afford to buy a fixer upper outright.

The grass isn't always greener, you know.

Speaking as someone outside the UK, I think you sometimes don't appreciate what you have there.

Rainy days and rude people? Not missing much, trust me.

The British Empire wasn't founded because Brits were unadventurous homebodies!

Oh yes! Lest we forget the greatest colonial empire of Britain and then the pride to proclaim the importance of good old “British Values”, some great values… Where those values remembered during times of building their empires off the back of colonialism?

I spent two months there last year visiting various towns across England and Wales and I don't recognise your characterisation at all. But it sounds like you are quite committed to your negative worldview and you are very welcome to it.

I'm not surprised at all. Good on them! Ds1 is thinking of moving to Italy when he qualifies. He likes it there and his Italian is good, although nowhere near business vocab yet, but I'm pleased for him.

“No place like home”

Oh, you’d fit right in you would.

Yes YABU as they have paid fees and will do loads of unpaid overtime in the few years they do stay. Young doctors are treated like shit in this country. It's 25 years since I was refused annual leave for my own wedding and that stuff is still going on.

I was literally trying to make you feel better about your situation because you sounded so down and you chose war and to assassinate my character.

You really would fit right in with the rude people.

Good riddance, we don't need any more rude people and I take back any kindness I may have shown a soulless person. It makes sense now why you have ended up being half way across the world and deeply unhappy about it.

You are clearly just not a very nice person.

There are some good things and London probably still has similar with top companies attracting young people from o/s as in pp

I can see why the sentiment is to leave though, opportunity and taxes being more conducive elsewhere

Not so much now. Canada is massively cracking down on immigrants now and making it a lot harder to get in.

I suspect Kuwait isn’t as ‘Liberal’ happy to be corrected though

Hope he has an EU passport, Dd tried to move to Italy and it was impossible.

shes now setting her sights on Canada. Planning to move there in two years time.

Brexit has definitely cut choices for a lot of people.

Good for them. Why would any young person want to stay in the UK now, nothing works - transport doesn't work, economy is f**ed, high cost of living, high tax, expensive student fees, high rent. Unless you have inheritance it's very hard to get on the property ladder or accumulate any wealth. Thanks to Brexit it's now even harder to move around. I moved to Switzerland 5 years ago. Cost of living feels the same as the UK now, infant I pay less rent than London rates. Only pay 20% tax. Health care is incredible. Transport amazing. Everyone here is much happier. The mood in the UK is at it's worst, every time I come back someone tells me not to move back. People are miserable, disgruntled, fed up. I think alot of people genuinely hoped that Labour would bring about change but now that's not happening things seem more bleak.

That is an incorrect suspicion based off of your blind consumerism of Western mediated propaganda against Middle Eastern countries which have lower crime rates in their countries than all of your “liberal” UK governed towns and cities.

Mine are elsewhere too. Can’t blame them.

Anecdotally, I feel there is a huge drain of young talent from the UK especially to English speaking countries such as Canada, Oz, NZ etc.

It’s not surprising in the slightest, they had the advantage of a small class of 14 in a prep school.
Small class sizes and higher than average net worth parents. They’ve likely had more advantages and choices than a pupil from an oversubscribed equivalent in a rough part of town.

Good. They need to go where they are treated the best. UK isn't that place right now and it will only get worse for everyone.