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!

I think many adventurous young people have always moved abroad.

My father’s family ( war/ postwar generation) are scattered around the US, Canada and Australia. Interestingly some have returned to UK in retirement. Some of their DC have also come back to work.
That generation also went to the Gulf for the chance to earn tax free. Still the case but people do a few years and then move on.
Some found prospects in Hong Kong were better than those in the City. Many have now returned given the changing politics.

Brits idealise Europe but France, Germany and the Netherlands are all facing big political and economic problems. Tax rates are higher than in UK. Mumsnet thinks the German housing market is perfect. Try and find a place to live in Berlin, Munich or Hamburg and you will see a different picture.

The grass on the other side of the fence is always greener.

Just because people move abroad, doesn't mean they won't come back.

To match the OPs anecdata, a lot come back when they need medical treatment their insurance won't pay for, or they run out of money ....

Agree with the bigger picture as you mention. Both of mine and their skills have currently been lost to the UK. One may come back and as a teacher she adds so much to society while the other has stated he will never come back but the main thing society will lose from him is a huge amount of tax revenue (works in finance)!

If you think it is different anywhere else in the world may Heaven preserve your innocence, my child.

“Brits idealise Europe but France, Germany and the Netherlands are all facing big political and economic problems. Tax rates are higher than in UK. Mumsnet thinks the German housing market is perfect. Try and find a place to live in Berlin, Munich or Hamburg and you will see a different picture.”

True, Mumsnet does sometimes have a rosy picture of life abroad but DS in a European capital initially found finding a place to live v difficult, he does pay more tax than he would here but he says his quality of life, the local culture and the fact that things just seem to work make life far nicer to an when he was working in London.

This has always been the case.
People who cannot make the career and/or life they want in the UK have always gone abroad whether to the colonies, the EU or elsewhere.
Nothing new in this. Just that by a statistical fluke OP your very tiny sample has a higher percentage that most.
Whether they actually manage to make a better life is, of course, another question.

Brits idealise Europe

Not enough to learn the language though

The ‘better life’ thing is the oddity I find in Brits’ attitude to emigration. (I say this as someone who immigrated to the UK in my 20s.) It’s pretty subjective, beyond some obvious basics, and doing some kind of either/or comparison ignores the desire just to live somewhere new, use a different language, smell a different air, experience a different culture, an unfamiliar landscape.

I was living in France and had the opportunity to do a funded postgraduate degree in Paris or in Oxford, and I chose Oxford in part because I didn’t know it, and Paris was familiar with— also because I wanted to spend some time living in London later, which I didn’t know well at that point but thought was probably more interesting (for me) than Paris.

@SoapySponge IME life is so much better overseas, the grass really is greener. Astonishingly & increasingly so…

I don't understand the suprise!
I'm 30... Qualified with a good degree, almost 4 years experiance under my belt now in my industry.
The part of the country i work in
shared house rent alone is £800+ a month
1 bed flat is roughly £1200
for what i earn, the referencing from the estate agents would only let me rent something to the value of £900/month.
a deposit on a rental will also probably be around the 2000k mark..
I cant afford to save for a deposit, locally even shared ownership is upwards of 250k, we worked it out, and at what i can afford to put away in savings, it will currently take me 30 years to save a deposit.
I cant get proper womens healthcare here becuase the health service is inherently mysoginistic, and god forbid i know my own mind.
the standard of living is crap, I pay a huge ammount of tax
my mum can't get the care she needs
vets bills are extortionate
the weather is usually damp and grey

my plan as soon as i have the requisite 7 years under my belt it to GTFO to france.
affordable house prices
better paid jobs in my industry (i have the contact there to pick up a job, just need the experiance)
better healthcare
much better weather
(query better roads as lord knows sometimes they are abysmal, but generally better than here!)

I honestly dont see myeslf still being here in 5 years. Mum and I already have the right to remain in france due to past work and education history there, so its only a small ammount of paperwork to go permanently

I think the UK probably isn’t that appealing to many aspirational young people at the moment. However, private schools are so international, it is hardly surprising that many go abroad. It is a bit sad if they don’t choose to stay in the UK though.

Just to balance all this, only yesterday there was a post in my local (Brumcentric) FB group from an American (US) family who have moved to the UK to give their kids a better chance, being (their words) POC and not liking high school massacres.

Was ever thus, during the 80s/90s, loads of people i knew went to Germany to work, funnily enough that was also caused by Tory mismanagement of the economy.

I worked in S Africa, France and Sweden in the 90s.

Whilst i know a few who have moved abroad, i also know some who have moved back, most recently a consultant who lived in NZ, now back in the NHS.

You're looking in the wrong countries, mother 😉

It is.

Every country has its own issues, and no one has denied that, but many of us that have emigrated have indeed found an improved quality of life elsewhere.

Its cheaper for Brits to study medicine elsewhere, so its likely they’ll just leave the UK earlier, rather than training in the UK and being trapped for five years.

Equally many of us have tried life elsewhere and returned. Plenty of Americans, Canadians, Australians etc have chosen to stay here because they prefer it.

That’s absolutely fine, Med school is so competitive, I’m sure there would be plenty of students willing to take their place.

I agree that it does cost a lot to train doctors and nurses and it's not nice to loose them to other countries. But we have benefited from overseas trained nurses and doctors for decades and that too most of them are from developing world!

People migrate depending on their aspirations and opportunities available to them. If young people feel that this country does not provide these things then they will move.

That breaks my heart. To be honest our country and continent are in a state of societal decline. Is it even still possible to turn around? I somewhat have my doubts...

I don't think any government in the recent years has been honest enough to tackle the societal decline!

Sure. I didn’t claim otherwise.

It doesn’t shock me at all, but I think quite a few do end up coming back.

Both my DC are early 30s.
DS studied in the uk and then move to Hong Kong for 2 years, then Dubai for 1. Ended up back in the uk at 26ish?
DD went to a US uni, then did a year and a half world tour gap year, then settled in Aus to do her postgrad. She was 26 when she finished that, worked in Sydney for a year, moved to Miami for about a year and a half, 2 years in Barcelona and only now is she coming back to settle in the UK with her Australian husband, he has been the driving force for moving to the uk bur DD is looking forward to it.

She found the Australian housing market very intense and said she felt isolated as she couldn’t just have a weekend in France or a weekend in Italy whenever she fancied it. She loved Miami but felt a lot of the same isolation and ultimately the state of politics in the USA became off putting for her (gun ownership, access to healthcare and abortion rights mostly). Barcelona was pretty easy for them as her boyfriends mum is Spanish and DDs dad is Danish so they have EU passports but ultimately they said they couldn’t imagine starting a family in Barcelona - no idea why but that’s the reason.
Now they are back living in London, DD says she does miss the better weather but thinks that it’s easy to feel pessimistic about wherever you live and every place she has been has had drawbacks just like the uk. She did admit though that knowing they will be able to privately educate their children (when or if they have them) did make the UK choice easier as she would never send her child to a UK state school.

So no I’m not shocked, but I think a good few will be back in their 30s.

Is it really that surprising that children from privileged backgrounds are more likely to live abroad?