2 out of 5 younger women want to leave US for good, poll finds

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FILE - A sign marking the international border between the United States and Canada is pictured at Peace Arch Historical State Park in Blaine, Washington, on March 5, 2025. (Photo by JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images)

The number of women who said they wished they could leave the United States and live in another country has increased, according to a recent Gallup poll.

In 2025, about 40% of women aged 15 to 44 said they would move abroad permanently if given the opportunity. That’s four times more than the 10% who shared this same desire in 2014.

Why do US women want to leave?

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Though the number of Americans overall who want to leave the U.S. to live in another country is one in five, and steadily increasing, women far outpace that overall number as well as the number of their male counterparts.

By contrast, 19% of the young women's male counterparts said they would like to leave the U.S. for good, marking what Gallup said was the widest gap it had recorded in this trend. Gallup also noted that few countries had shown this kind of gender gap in a desire to migrate since it started measuring the question globally in 2007.

This trend among women began to rise in 2016, which was also President Barack Obama’s final year in office, according to Gallup. And before 2016, the desire to move to another country wasn’t as prevalent among this demographic.

Gallup correlated much of this shift to politics and American women losing faith in the country’s government, justice system, military and the integrity of elections.

The numbers steadily increased during President Donald Trump’s first term and during President Joe Biden’s final year in office.