Item — HN Reader

>Net migration to the US from the richer EU countries is about 0, i.e. about the same number of US citizens are moving into the EU as are moving from those EU countries into the US.

Not true. 10-17% of Canadian, British, Australian, and Swiss scientists move to the US. (https://np.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/37lgxg/the_...) These are percentages of all researchers, whether they emigrate anywhere or not. (By contrast, only 5% of US scientists leave theiir country.)

Among the general population, there are 824,000 Britons living in the US, compared to 159,000 Americans living in Britain. Given that the US's population is about five times that of Britain's, that means that on a per-capita basis a Briton is 25 times more likely to move to the US than an American is to move to Britain.

Of course fewer Europeans migrate to the US than in the 19th and early 20th centuries, or compared to Latin American countries today, but they still come and the net flows are still considerably in the US's favor. There are 1.2 million German-born people living in the US, for example, versus only 150,000 American-born people living in Germany, although the US has four times Germany's population. Sweden and Norway? 15,000 Americans in each, compared to 54,000 Swedes and 36,000 Norwegians in the US. Sweden has 10 million people—the size of Los Angeles County—so there would have to be 1.62 million Americans living there to match those going the other way on a per-capita basis. There are 49,000 Swiss born in the US, compared to 24,000 American born in Switzerland. The US's population is about 37 times larger, so a Swiss is 75 times more likely to move to the US than the other way around. There are 71,000 people born in Austria living in the US compared to 7,700 Americans in Austria, implying that an Austrian is more than 300 times (!) more likely to move to the US.

Same with non-European countries; for example, 945,000 Canadians in the US versus 279,000 Americans in Canada. Since the US's population is nine times that of Canada's, on a per-capita basis a Canadian is 27 times more likely to move to the US than the other way around. Yes, the US has a nicer climate than Canada, but this is consistent with other Anglosphere countries; 75,000 Australians and 26,000 New Zealanders are in the US compared to 54,000 Americans in Australia and 13,000 in New Zealand, respectively, so on a per-capita basis Australians are about 20 times more likely to move to the US and New Zealanders an amazing 140 times. Etc., etc.

(All data comes from Migration DRC (http://www.migrationdrc.org/research/typesofmigration/global... see table 4. Military forces are excluded. A less-detailed graphical version (http://migrationsmap.net/#/USA/arrivals) is also available.)

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Example for Germany: https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2020/10... (German language)

See the line chart at about the middle of the page, with three lines in black, blue and red. The chart shows net migration Germany <> USA. The red line shows German citizens only, black shows people formerly living in Germany, but without German citizen status. In 1998 there was peak in emigration to the US, but from then on the trend moves towards net immigration from the US.

I'd love to look at your data, but that migration DRC link points to an apparently empty wordpress instance.

>See the line chart at about the middle of the page, with three lines in black, blue and red. The chart shows net migration Germany <> USA. The red line shows German citizens only, black shows people formerly living in Germany, but without German citizen status. In 1998 there was peak in emigration to the US, but from then on the trend moves towards net immigration from the US.

Thank you for pointing me to the document. The entire press release is a marvel of sophistry. From its first sentence ("Das Ergebnis der 59. Präsidentschaftswahl der Vereinigten Staaten am 3. November wird mit Spannung erwartet") to the later claim that "Seit 2017 ziehen mehr Personen von den USA nach Deutschland als umgekehrt", is the federal statistics office's communications office trying its best to claim that "Orange Man Bad so fewer Germans are moving to the US" without actually using Trump's name or, more importantly, with data actually supporting the claim. Most people are going to only read the headline and perhaps the first paragraph, and not see that the US hasn't been the most popular destination for German emigrants since 2004, so the recent trend is not a result of the Trump presidency. The US is still the third most popular destination as of 2019, only behind two German-speaking countries; it is ahead of every other country, including the UK and other countries that Germans can move to easily because of the EU and Schengen. Rather than Trump, it looks like the trend is a return to the pre-1990 norm. (More on this later.)

Regarding the chart you mentioned, the black line is presumably mostly Yugoslavian War refugees who used Germany as a stopover to get to the US (thus the late 1990s peak) and would not be applicable in showing native Germans' intent regarding moving to the US.

The red line does not show a recent trend toward "net migration from the US" (impling more Americans moving to Germany than German citizens moving to the US) but that, as the text says, recent population flows between Germany (German citizens) and the US have been almost even in gross terms. This is a reversion to the pre-1991 norm, as opposed to something unprecedented. Further, given that the US has about four times as many people as Germany, this implies that a random German citizen today is about four times more likely to move to the US than an American is to move to Germany.

Of course, these flows are not necessarily permanent; most are likely students, or workers on temporary assignments. Obtaining ciitzenship is a more meaningful indicator of interest. In 2019 4,745 German-born people obtained US citizenship while 1,205 Americans obtained German citizenship. This implies that a random German citizen today is 16 times more likely to obtain US citizenship than an American is to obtain German citizenship.

Further, 75% of those Americans obtaining German citizenship in 2019 do not live in Germany but are taking advantage of the right of return (encouraged, from 2006, by the German Citizenship Project (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Citizenship_Project)), while the US does not have a similar law. Only about 300 of Americans obtaining German citizenship actually lived in Germany. This implies that a random German citizen today is 48 times more likely to obtain US citizenship and to move to the US, than an American is to obtain German citizenship.

>I'd love to look at your data, but that migration DRC link points to an apparently empty wordpress instance.

Sorry; didn't realize that the domain had expired. The version 4 I mentioned of the dataset is now at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/SCMR/drc/research/typesofmigra....

Thanks for the reply. I fully agree that the Trump framing is horrible, BTW, though it's hard to properly deep link to the data tables on that site. There was no intention to add spin to this discussion :)

Here is the raw data: https://www-genesis.destatis.de/genesis/online?operation=abr...

And: I dont' have an axe to grind here, I just objected to the notion that there is mass emigration from the EU to the USA, because I remembered the numbers for Germany.

What makes meaningful comparison of the numbers nontrivial are differing definitions.

Basis of the graphs are permanent movements away from or to Germany, so students and temp work are not included - https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bevoel... (sorry, everything German only).

Citizenship is probably a problematic category because it is quite hard to achieve citizenship in Germany. There a millions of persons being born in Germany that don't have citizenship. Compared to the USA, Germany has an essentially racist basis here, though it has been made easier in recent years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_sanguinis).