More and more young women want to leave the U.S. for Canada: poll
The number of younger women who want to leave the U.S. has “surged to unprecedented levels,” and their top destination to move to is Canada, according to a new poll.
On Thursday, Gallup released the 2025 findings for its question about Americans’ desire to migrate. It found that for the second straight year, about one in five Americans say they would like to leave the U.S. and move permanently to another country if they could.
“This heightened desire to migrate is driven primarily by younger women,” wrote Gallup reporters Benedict Vigers and Julie Ray.
The results of the poll found that in 2025, 40 per cent of women aged 15 to 44 say they would move abroad permanently if they had the opportunity.
Gallup
“The current figure is four times higher than the 10 per cent who shared this desire in 2014, when it was generally in line with other age and gender groups,” reads the report.
According to Gallup, the percentage of younger women wanting to move to another country first spiked in 2016, which was former president Barack Obama’s final year of his second term in office.
The report said that the desire to migrate continued to climb after the current President Donald Trump became the Republican nominee, hitting 44 per cent in President Joe Biden’s last year at the White House. It remains near that level in 2025.
Gallup noted that it asks about desire to migrate, so its findings reflect aspirations, not intentions.
“Previous Gallup research shows not everyone who wants to move will move,” reads the report. “Still, the data indicate that millions of younger American women are increasingly imagining their futures elsewhere.”
And it turns out most young women who want to leave the U.S. are imagining a future in Canada.
“Canada remains the top preferred destination for younger American women looking to leave, with 11 per cent of those in the years since 2022 mentioning Canada as their top destination, ahead of New Zealand, Italy and Japan (all 5%),” stated the report.
Gallup shared several reasons for their desire to move, including a loss of faith in America’s institutions and their attitudes towards the current Trump administration.
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“Younger women’s much stronger orientation to the Democratic Party than other age and gender groups exhibit helps explain some of the differences in desire to move abroad,” explained the report.
A possible example of why Canada could be at the top of American women’s lists is access to women’s reproductive rights.
Women in the U.S. were welcomed by the Government of Canada in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“Americans who come to Canada are able to access medical services here today if they need it,” a spokesperson for Karina Gould, former minister of families, children and social development, told Daily Hive.
The Gallup poll ultimately found that younger women in the U.S. are “increasingly lacking faith in national institutions and picture their futures beyond America’s borders.”