We previewed the new Expat Survey by i-World Research in our July newsletter last week and now our article “Global Survey Discovers New American Expat Generation” is live on the site for everyone to read.
For Americans, the real news was confirmation of a new American expat generation. The research says these new adventurers have been on the move for the last five years and are primarily millennials, 18-34-year-old young adults who have a yen for life outside of the United States.
The Expat Survey 2013 surveyed just under 8,000 expats from 128 countries for their opinions and attitudes on a variety of topics. The overall survey included results from three separate studies: Migration & Lifestyle, Retail & Finance and Travel & Health.
Any regular reader of this blog knows that I’ve never met a research report I haven’t loved; so having the opportunity to interview i-World Research Project Director Emma Wood was indeed a pleasure, as the Brits would say.
A key finding that jumped out from the research was the emergence over the last five years of a new American expat generation, confirming what we have reported in our MYIA articles “The New American Expat Generation” and “Which Americans Are Moving Abroad.”
“There also is a youth element to moving abroad, particularly from America,” Wood told us. “Ten years ago Americans were not really up there. The American element was not strong, but it has opened up in the last five years with the younger generation of Americans adopting a much more adventurous attitude, a much more inquisitive attitude on foreign cultures. There was a younger element in there below the age of 30 that has adopted the attitude ‘If I don’t do it now, when am I going to do it?’”
Indeed. Millennials are doing it every day. And, we’ve found they love the idea of entrepreneurship. Whether frustrated by job opportunities in America or just wanting the adventure of starting a business in a new land, millennials are making it happen.
You can see a 16-minute edited video of our interview under Adventurer Videos in the right hand column of the MYIA website or on our MyInternationalAdventure YouTube channel.