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OWS or LUS?
02 Nov 2011 by Bob Adams in Commentaries / 5 Comments
Recent weeks have devoted a lot of attention to the “Occupy Wall Street” (OWS) demonstrations and others in the US and around the world. The attention is understandable and the anxiety and anger underlying the actions of the young adults who predominate are also understandable in most locations. In the US, not being able to get a job, being forced to live with your family, feeling that no one older cares enough to help, and similar factors are all at play in the OWS phenomenon. The purpose of the “occupations” is to express that anxiety and anger in a fashion that can grab the attention of the older generations and they certainly have done that.
However, there is another approach that can be taken by a young adult and it is age-old. Ask the Irish. That approach is for a young adult to pack his or her bags and head out for somewhere where opportunities seem to be more plentiful, or simply to get away from the depressing atmosphere at home in the hopes of finding something better eventually. For American young adults, we could call this “Leaving the US” (LUS).
There are undoubtedly many differences in the profiles of those who choose OWS and those who choose LUS, but one superficial, but important, factor stands out. OWS gets the headlines. LUS gets ignored. And yet, our survey results suggest that LUS is a far larger group than OWS.
It may be argued that US adults under 35 are the most likely to have the least holding them back from relocation and that has been reflected in the statistics of most of our IBOPE-Zogby surveys, with the exception of 2009. However, 2011 demonstrated a return to “normal”, although at the highest levels of all the surveys. The statistics on the 25-34 age group planning to relocate indicate that roughly two million (5.1% of 42 million Americans in that age group) are packing their bags. The statistics on the 18-24 age group interested in relocating indicate that there are millions more willing to take the plunge, but it is probably not a bad guess that this group is the least likely to have the money available to do it and least likely to have developed the skills and work experience that can make the difference after relocation.
I think it is a fairly safe assumption that those in the LUS group vastly outnumber those in the OWS group. Why don’t get they any attention at all? The answer is simple and it is the same answer for all age groups surveyed. The LUS group is not a group. It has absolutely no organization and it makes no attempt to create headlines. Americans who choose to relocate do so as the result of millions of households making their decisions independently. This is not a “movement”. This is not a “protest”. It is simply people doing what they choose to do. In that sense, it is truly “All-American”.
In 44 years of working and living globally, I have met many young American foreign residents. Some don’t make it, but most do. I am impressed with them. They come with a lot less money than older adults, but they are far more willing to adapt and are not ashamed to live simpler lives until they get better established. They are innovative and industrious. They take the risks because they see the opportunities. If denied work visas for fear they will take jobs from nationals, many start small businesses and create jobs. It isn’t easy, but they make it work and they have fun doing it. But they aren’t doing it in the US.
Relocation is nothing new. For centuries, young adults have left home to seek a better life. These young Americans seek a better life too. If we want them to find it in America, we had better get to work, right now.
One of the reasons we put up this website was not to enter into any dispute or create any “movement”, but to simply provide the public with an overview of relocation and its adoption by more Americans than most people would ever guess. Although relocators may not be pursuing a “cause” or other socio-political end, they are real people, real Americans, and they should not be ignored.
About the Author: Bob Adams
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5 Comments
Bill Dorgan
I am a 62 year-old product of LIRE and LENG: Leaving Ireland and England.
Like the LUS, my sets of grandparents came to the US in the late 1800s. They “head(ed) out for somewhere where opportunities seem to be more plentiful, or simply to get away from the depressing atmosphere at home in the hopes of finding something better eventually.”
Like the OWS, they were “not … able to get a job, were forced to live with their family and they felt that no one older cared enough (or were able to care enough) to help”. They were a phenomenon: a leaderless, disorganized rag-tag group soon to coalesce into an organized political and social movement (machine) once they learned how to manage their new-found freedom and liberty.
And that’s the same path OWS is developing … slowly.
I saw this first-hand last week in NYC as I mingled with them.
OWS is a grass-roots collection of disparate (and desperate) individuals of all ages (but mostly 20s/30s) in search of the promised, yet illusive, American Dream they perceive as their birth-right.
They make the case that the “1%” has aggrandized so much more than their “fair share” of the Dream through greed and acquisitiveness at the expense of the “Common Man”, the “99%”. They believe there will be nothing left for them except the looming nightmare of poverty, hopelessness and dejection.
Who knows? This nascent development may trend into a “social movement” just like the ones of previous generations: Human Rights, Abolitionism, Women’s Rights, Civil Rights, Gay Rights, etc.
OWS has chosen to stay home rather than go abroad like the LUS and that will make all the difference here (and elsewhere) as soon as they get organized and find appropriate leaders … just like the national political scene.
I lived in Panama for two years (2005-07). I invested in two properties before I returned “home” to the US.
So I am a REP (Returning Ex-Patriot) …
not to be confused with REP (Republican or Representative).
03 Nov 2011 04:11 pm (@twitter.com/billdorgan)
Bob Adams
You may be right. Time will tell. But the LUS group may very well be the "social movement" that changes the whole world, along with their millions of counterparts relocating from Ireland (again), Greece, Spain, Portugal, (the LEU group, so to speak) and a host of other nations. And it's not just the troubled North Atlantic. Movement within and between Latin America, Asia and other continents among young adults is a growing phenomenon, but like those in the US, they go unnoticed. Some nations, like Chile with its successful Start-UpChile project, are actively reaching out to young adults from all over the world. If not always, sometimes the "movements" with the greatest and longest-lasting impacts are the quiet ones. This one has been underway for years and just grows...quietly.
Thank you for sharing such thoughtful comments.
03 Nov 2011 04:11 pm
Jerome Barry
My first cousins number 19, with the last one being born in 1962. Of that group, one, or about 5.2%, Left the U.S. with a foreign spouse and raised her family in Kenya. After her spouse retired they moved to his village in Uganda and started a new business. They thrive and prosper there and are the 1% in Uganda. Meanwhile, all her kids left Kenya and Uganda and pursued careers in America. In a curious twist, my cousin left Texas for love and returned 3 children to Texas for money.
05 Nov 2011 10:11 am (@Twitter)
Bob Adams
Thanks, Jerome, for your family's story. I often point out to folks that relocation is not a one-way street. It is not simply a question of one nation "losing" someone and another "gaining" and that's all. It opens up an avenue that allows both nations to benefit. My only hope is that those leaving are going for positive reasons, not just leaving for negative reasons. In my family, my niece went to Armenia as a Peace Corps Volunteer and returned with a husband! Our two families are now linked happily and my niece and her husband's kids are benefiting from exposure to both cultures, as are we all.
05 Nov 2011 10:11 am
bloggal
This is very interesting. I wish you weren’t focusing on the “young” as though those of us over 25 (or heaven forbid, 35!) are elderly and just don’t matter. But I am glad I’ve come across this site.
My former roommate announced one day that his fiance was leaving to teach English in Asia. She was laid off here in the US and replaced w/college interns who work for free! When she arrived in her new country she met several people she’d known from the US–from a small town in MN! What are the odds that you go to a small town in Asia and happen to run into several ppl from your small town in middle America? Shortly after, my roomie’s aunt who’d lived down the street from him moved to a diff state. (So my roommate lost two ppl he was close to and that’s something ppl don’t talk about–how poverty affects relationships.)
As the aunt was “middle-aged,” she had a lot of trouble finding work and had to move closer in to relatives who could help support her if needed. (Ageism, like sexism and racism, seems to be on the rise in the US.) I think it’s because employers want to pay their employees less. It doesn’t matter if they get rid of experienced, highly skilled ppl and replace them with less-skilled newbies. They’re more preoccupied with their own profit margin–providing quality goods or svcs isn’t as impt to them.
That’s why many ppl wd like to lv the US–it’s not just for economic reasons, but some of us are tired of the emphasis on greed and selfishness, money and material things. Some of us went to college to actually learn and grow, not to just get a good job. Some of us still value cultivating happy, healthy people and good quality of life over making oodles of money for a few. Those of us who think this way either have to lv the country or stay and remain in poverty ’cause we sure don’t fit into the corporate world with our people-oriented attitudes.
There are lots of jobs in Collections, for example, but I won’t take them no matter how desperate I am. I just can’t do something that violates my morals.
Thanks for writing about this.
25 Nov 2012 09:11 pm (@Twitter)
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