We posed special questions that required more thought than the normal survey question. Here are two of those questions that demonstrated differences between the two groups.

If you had to choose between these two job opportunities, which would you choose?

1. A job where your responsibilities, the work environment, and the people you would work with were regularly changing.
2. A job where your responsibilities, the work environment, and the people you would work with were stable and unlikely to change.
3. Not sure

Here are the results for those who were not considering relocation:

The job is likely to change 28.6%
The job is unlikely to change 58.9%
Not sure 12.5%

Here are the results for considering relocation:

The job is likely to change 43.9%
The job is unlikely to change 38.0%
Not sure 18.2%

Here are the results presented graphically.

You have the opportunity to travel to an exotic tropical nation where people live a very different lifestyle than you. Do you stay in the “safe” areas where tourists are welcome or do you visit areas where tourists rarely are seen?

1. I wouldn’t visit an exotic nation, I prefer to travel near my home, if at all.
2. I would stick to the areas that the guidebooks said were best for tourists.
3. I would set out on my own to visit any area that looked interesting.
4. Not sure

Here are the results for those who were not considering relocation:

Wouldn’t visit – 16.5%
Stick to guidebooks – 38.2%
Set out on my own – 38.0%
Not sure – 7.4%

Here are the results for those considering relocation:

Wouldn’t visit – 5.6%
Stick to guidebooks – 18.3%
Set out on my own – 70.3%
Not sure – 4.5%

Here are the results presented graphically.

There was a clear difference in the way the two groups responded to an uncertain or changing environment. However, when considering whether statements described themselves (“If I take a risk and fail, I can handle the consequences” and “I feel uneasy when I have to make a decision with an uncertain outcome”), the two groups answered almost identically.

We had expected potential relocators to be more self-confident and willing to take “risks” like the two above and that is what we found. We were not expecting them to be no more self-confident than non-relocators, but those were the results. It’s interesting that they are much more likely to enter unknown territory that might be risky, but not show a higher level of self-confidence in other regards.

If you follow the media on the topic of Americans living overseas, you will think that the great majority are retirees seeking a lower cost of living, warmer weather, or some other goal associated in many people’s minds with retirement. It seems that every site with a “Retirement” section feels obligated to feature relocation for retirees at least once a year, if not more often. Rarely do they discuss other age groups elsewhere on their sites, if ever.

There is nothing wrong with this. I have worked with retiree relocators from the US for years. They are certainly a factor. But they are only one segment of a much larger market. From our first survey in 2005, it was clear that retirees were not a dominant group. However, this is not as clear when looking at age groups separately as we do here.

The pie charts above show the results for 2011 for each age group as a proportion of the total of those planning to relocate, the most “serious” category. We also divide the results into two groups: those under 55 and those 55 and older to give a clearer view as it is a fair assumption that the older group includes those planning retirement or retired. Of course, there are certainly a substantial number not retiring, so this biases the results toward retirees. Despite that, they are still a clear minority group. They are important, but no more than the others and smaller than either younger adults or middle-aged adults.

The results are obvious. Retirees, including most of those planning their retirements, are nowhere near a “great majority” or even a majority, of America’s relocators.

But let’s look at it from yet another perspective, over time. Below are three pie charts showing the two combined age groups.

As you can quickly see, those 55 and over are a minority (they always have been since our first survey), but they are a larger minority since the global financial crisis came into play. Why?

I think one reason is that this older age group is far more likely to own their home outright, having paid off any mortgage, or owe so little on an original sales price that was much lower two or three decades or more ago that paying it off is no problem. In addition, the 18-24 age group is out of the picture entirely in 2011, as was not the case before, but the younger group still grew as a percentage of the total, reflecting the rise of the 25-34 age group.

Any way you cut the pie, pardon the pun, people planning or in retirement are an important group of relocators, but not dominant or even sufficiently large enough, in my mind, to justify the media’s huge emphasis on their relocation, while usually ignoring everyone else.

The Great Escape
By BOB ADAMS

The U.S. could suffer greater economic stress if the number of young adults emigrating continues to rise. We can’t afford to lose their skill set, which includes the risk-taking ambitions of their forebears who immigrated here.

This is a dangerous time for the United States, and not just because of the lingering Great Recession. Young adult Americans are packing their bags and heading out of the country in astonishing numbers. Many more are turning their minds in that direction.

We’re not losing a generation yet, but we are losing many among the most likely to innovate, experiment and create: They’re the descendants of risk-takers who arrived in the U.S. in centuries past and built this incredible nation.

Our firm, AmericaWave, has been tracking the trend of Americans considering relocation overseas since 2005 using the IBOPE-Zogby opinion survey firm. (I summarized some prior findings in a Barron’s Other Voices piece, “A New Life in Panama,” Sept. 24, 2007).

As with any opinion survey, you have to know the question asked: “Are you planning to relocate to another nation for more than two years for reasons other than the requirements of the military, the government, or your job?”

(art - Dan Picasso for Barron’s)
Despite large amounts of ink spilled over the issues of immigration, Americans should be very concerned about emigration. Nearly 40% of young Americans 18 to 24 are thinking about leaving the U.S. to seek opportunity abroad.

The wording was meant to focus attention on those Americans voluntarily relocating. Had we not approached respondents in this manner, we have no doubt our numbers would have been far higher and more dramatic, but we were not interested in drama.

We offered a set of responses to choose from, the most serious being simply, “Yes, I plan to relocate outside the U.S.”

WE RAN OUR EIGHTH national survey in March 2009. The collapse of the U.S. housing market, high unemployment and the global financial crisis were then common knowledge, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average swooned, closing at 6547.05 on March 9.

Risk-taking was out of fashion. There was a sharp drop-off in the number of people who had made their decision to relocate overseas, but a steady number remained interested. Our ninth survey followed in March 2011. We expected to see some recovery in the numbers, but nothing substantial. In our baseline surveys between 2005-07, an average of 1.4% of U.S. households planned to relocate (about 1.6 million households, representing well over 3 million people). In 2009, it fell to 0.8% of households planning relocation.

The 2011 total was 2.5% of households planning to leave these shores, closing in on three million households and six million people. What changed?

The key was found in the breakdown by age group. Those from 25 to 34 years of age are young adults, some 42,000,000 of them. They are among the most energetic, innovative and creative Americans. They go where they feel the jobs and excitement are. Our wider research indicates a growing interest in Asia and Latin America, less so in Europe.

In 2009, less than 1% of this age group was actually into the planning stage of relocation. In 2011, it is 5.1%. While the 35-to-54 and 55-to-69 age groups also set new highs, it is those aged 25 to 34 who are the major factor in the increase of interest. In all our surveys, we have never seen a shift of this magnitude of those actually planning to relocate in any age group.

Behind them, the 18-to-24 age group includes many still in school or unable to find jobs. They are likely demoralized in these hard economic times, and the number planning relocation has collapsed. However, those “seriously interested and likely to relocate” and those “somewhat interested and may relocate” rose to 39.6%. In other words, nearly 40% of that age group have turned their minds toward leaving the U.S., whether or not they can afford it right now. In 2007, that total was just over 15%.

OUR SURVEYS ARE UNIQUE, but there is one other survey that should be noted. The Gallup organization has polled in well over 100 nations since 2007 on a similar question with a striking difference. “Ideally, if you have the opportunity, would you like to move permanently to another country, or would you prefer to continue living in this country?”

“Permanently” is a powerful word that indicates a level of intensity beyond any of our responses. Gallup breaks the results into eight global regions, including “Northern America” (here, the U.S. and Canada). The percentage saying they wish to migrate permanently is down in all but two regions– Northern America and the European Union. The result for Northern America is 10%, and Gallup tells us that it is the same result for the U.S. and Canada, taken separately. Two regions, South Asia and Southeast Asia, now show lower percentages than the U.S.

My generation (I’m 66) has more than a financial burden to carry. We have a guilt burden, too, that’s obvious to young adults. Our children and grandchildren apparently believe we’ve made a mess of our futures and theirs. Worse yet, we outnumber and outvote them. In 2011, there are more Americans 50 to 54 than in every younger five-year cohort.

BRING UP THE SUBJECT of national debt, and you will invariably hear that this is a terrible burden we’re leaving for future generations. Well, the future generations are alive and well, and capable of reading the news. They know. The secret is out. These Americans can help the U.S. succeed in the global economy if they leave with that as a goal. There are no better ambassadors. But what if many of those now wishing to relocate are not leaving for that reason, but rather to flee a nation that offers them a mountain of debt instead of opportunity. The most industrious people don’t always hit the streets to demonstrate; they hit the road.

The U.S. has been the Land of Opportunity throughout its history. If there is one entitlement that all Americans deserve, especially the young, it is opportunity. We can, we must and we will find the courage to face the mess we have made and clean it up.

But a reputation built over decades, even centuries, can be lost in only a few years. Our young builders and business people will not wait. The older generation must not wait.

BOB ADAMS is CEO of AmericaWave.com in Panama and of New Global Initiatives in the U.S., which provide marketing services for clients interested in reaching the emerging global community.

Copyright © 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Republished with permission.

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.

This ignores the impact of the Internet of the last decade or two, as well as the many Americans of all backgrounds who visit Mexico, Central America, Panama and the Caribbean for relatively inexpensive vacations and, in the process, develop a very different attitude about foreign nations and the possibilities of living in one.

Whatever the reason for the assumption, the chart above clearly shows that there is no statistically significant difference at all between the two groups in planning to relocate. Data is not shown for 2007 as is true elsewhere at the site because this question was not included in the 2007 survey.

Let’s take a look at this variable among those “interested”, seriously or somewhat seriously, in relocation.

Here we see that college graduates were more likely to be interested in relocation in 2009, but that difference has disappeared in 2011.

This is one of the variables that indicates the growing impact of the middle class on relocation. Perhaps the upper and upper-middle classes dominated relocation in the 20th century (although we have no valid data from that century), but if so, it is no longer the case.

Well, the stats above suggest otherwise. Unless we define “upper class” as households with annual incomes from all sources of $50,000 or more, we have to understand that the reality is quite different. Yes, having more money is helpful for many things, relocation among them, but it is not the determining factor.

One shift of note is that the over-100K group did not drop as dramatically in 2009 as other income groups and they rose in 2011, but the under-50K group blew right past them.

As noted elsewhere (the education post, for example), the last decade or two of Internet use has opened the world to the great majority of Americans in a way unknown in earlier decades. It is hardly logical to assume that this has had little or no affect on the middle class. They can now “visit” potential relocation nations, write for information, “chat’ with others on on-line forums, and otherwise get a good idea of what would be required if they were to relocate. With that information available, the idea of relocation shifts from a “daydream” to a potential reality, and then, should they so choose, to reality.

I have seen exactly this happen in Panama. The majority of Americans living here are definitely not from the upper class. Neither are they impoverished. They are middle class, educated, intelligent, and quite capable of looking at relocation realistically, then doing it.

In order to fully understand American relocation in the 21st century, it is necessary to put old assumptions based on the past to one side and look at the facts. That was the foundation for our decision to contract these surveys. We had heard plenty of opinions based on assumptions. Armed with those facts, new thoughts and questions arise, and new potential future scenarios are created.

This brief note at the launch of America Wave is to explain that only a portion of survey data has been posted. As one example, the data on purchase of a property outside the US, but without immediate relocation, is not yet included. Additional data, analysis, and commentaries will be posted and the best way to keep up-to-date with changes is to subscribe using the sign-up form on the right-hand side of each page. We can assure you that we hate unwanted spam as much as you do, so your email information will not be shared, other than as required by law, or used for purposes other than informing you of news directly relevant to this website.

Each of our nine surveys, whether short or long, begins with a single “gateway” question. The survey is made of a statistically-valid sample of the adult American population. The great majority of Americans are not thinking of relocation or property purchase outside the US, so we first must identify those who are so interested.

Since our first survey in 2005, this question has been changed, primarily by being expanded. In the beginning, we focused on relocators only. Later, we began adding responses for people who were interested in property purchases, but not yet relocation. As we gained experience, we settled on the question below, have used it, and will continue to use it. Here it is.

Are you planning to relocate to another nation for more than two years for reasons other than the requirements of the military, the government, or your job?

• Yes, I plan to relocate outside the U.S.
• Yes, I am seriously considering it and am likely to do it.
• Yes, I am somewhat seriously considering it and may do it.
• No, but I plan to purchase a vacation or investment property outside the U.S.
• No, but I am seriously considering purchasing property outside the U.S. and am likely to do it.
• No, but I am somewhat seriously considering purchasing property outside the U.S. and may do it.
• No, I am not interested in relocating or buying a property outside the U.S.
• Not sure

There are two important aspects of this question. The first is “for more than two years” as we did not want to attract people who were planning extensive travel for a year or who were “studying abroad” for a semester and so forth.

The second, “for reasons other than the requirements of the military, the government, or your job” is the most critical and the most frequently forgotten by many people reading our survey results. We did this purposely as we are only interested in people who are voluntarily relocating or purchasing property. If our intention was to get the highest numbers possible, we would have left those words out of our question. The numbers would have been much more impressive, but that was not our interest.

That point allows us to say that the Americans we have found who are interested in relocating or purchasing outside the US are doing so voluntarily and not because someone else is requiring them to do so. This helps support our argument that overseas relocation is not the result of a “movement” or any other outside pressure, but the result of millions of individual households making individual decisions. This makes the “wave” of relocation all that much more impressive and it also explains why so few people in the US are aware of it. That definitely includes most journalists in all media. That explains why the majority of articles in the general US media focus on retirees seeking warmer climates, despite the simple fact this group, while certainly present, represents a small minority of the total of Americans relocating.

It starts with one man, Bob Adams. Bob was CEO and President of New Global Initiatives (NGI) in Maryland in the US, a firm providing humanitarian assistance in nations in need. He had more than four decades of professional experience in economic development in some four dozen of the less developed nations of the world. He was also approaching his 60th birthday. He knew from those decades of experience that life in many nations was cheaper than in the US, as well as warmer than Maryland, and more fun. With that in mind, he went looking for a nation where he could enjoy these benefits in the future, should he ever find the time to retire (doubtful though that might be to those who know him).

He found his new home in Panama. Discovering that nearly all the “Panama websites” of the day were purely commercial and unbalanced, sometimes ridiculously so, in their presentation of the nation, he set up RetirementWave.com as a non-profit, informational website on Panama. Without any advertising or promotion, his “membership” climbed into the thousands. As he answers all his email himself and meets with members visiting Panama, if they so request, he became increasingly familiar with the different kinds of Americans relocating. In the process, he realized he had misnamed his site as many of his members were not retirees, but younger people or older people intending to set up a business or otherwise continue to work.

He set out to learn more about Americans relocating anywhere in the world and quickly found there were no statistics, other than guesswork, available. Through NGI, he contracted with the Migration Policy Institute in Washington DC, a research group focused on migration globally, to do a “desk study”, a review of existing research on American relocation. There was none. So he further contracted with them to do a more in-depth study, including focus groups in Mexico and Panama.

All these efforts yielded very little information that could be considered valid for the total population of relocators. It is simply impossible to find every American living in another nation and then draw a valid sample. So Bob turned his attention to Americans who had not yet relocated, but who were potentially headed in that direction and the first survey of the US population was professionally undertaken on behalf of NGI by IBOPE-Zogby, formerly Zogby International, a highly experienced US-based opinion survey firm, in 2005. All the other surveys, including those referred to here, stem from that beginning and were conducted by the same team of professionals.

From thereon, it’s a long story, but we have continued to follow this topic in surveys. Although NGI is now closing down in the US, Bob and his associates are now active in Latin America. Bob has set up America Wave, Inc. as a corporation and a home to all the surveys.

Our surveys are a bit different than others. Most surveys you read in the news include 800 to 1200 respondents. Once in awhile, they cover 1,500 to 2,000, but that is uncommon as these lower numbers provide reasonable accuracy and margins of error. Our surveys have included from 2,000 to nearly 25,000 respondents to provided higher levels of accuracy and also allow us to look more closely at sub-groups of the total population, something other surveys do as well, but with much smaller numbers, less detail, and less accuracy.

We have also done very detailed surveys of where people want to go, why they want to relocate, what they expect to find, and a long list of other factors. We did not do that with the ninth survey as that is expensive and, frankly, we did not expect to find the dramatic changes that we indeed found. If there is sufficient interest from people like yourself, we may do additional surveys to provide the details that interest many people and help fill out the “profile” of relocators.

From the beginning, we have had to innovate. We were doing something that had not been done before. We were looking at a topic from the viewpoint of the 21st century, not the 16th, 18th, or 20th. There are many definitions of “migrant”, but traditionally it referred to someone who was moving to another nation to seek citizenship. After all, if you were going to spend weeks on a leaky wooden ship to start a new life elsewhere, you probably assumed it was for the rest of your life.

Today, it is very common for people from the US and elsewhere to move to other nations, but with no intention of giving up their citizenship. Although they may move for an indefinite period of time and that period may be the rest of their lives, they are not traditional migrants. They are Americans who have “relocated” to another nation, but they remain Americans.

They have always existed, but never before has it been so comparatively cheap, fast, and easy to relocate as it has become in the last couple decades. As we often point out, it’s not simply a matter of the Communications Revolution (the Web, email, etc.) making it very easy for folks to remain in contact with their families and friends back home, it is also a matter of the Transportation Revolution. It’s not that we move faster these days than we did ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. It is that we can now move nearly anywhere we like. The end of the Soviet Union and its “empire” and the changes in China post-Mao have opened the entire planet to relocators and that has had a huge impact as well, although it is rarely noted.

Although we have been the only group to survey Americans on the subject of relocation, there are other polls conducted by the Gallup firm that are indirectly related, but relevant. They approach it from a different angle. Here is their equivalent of our “gateway” question:

Ideally, if you had the opportunity, would you like to move permanently [our emphasis] to another country, or would you prefer to continue living in this country?

By using the word “permanently”, this is really a question concerning migration, not relocation. In addition, it offers no choice for those planning such a permanent move or at different levels of interest. Finally, it uses the word “ideally”, thus removing all constraints and separating it from the reality faced by the respondents. It is a perfectly legitimate question, but quite radically different from ours.

However, the results are of great interest and even supportive of our findings, if indirectly.

Gallup asked this question in 135 nations for one series of polls and 146 nations in another series implemented from 2007 through 2010, so this is not a survey of Americans only. They divide their results into eight global regions. One of those regions is Northern America (Canada and the US).

Of the eight global regions, in six of them the percentage answering that they would want to migrate had fallen. Only two regions had remained the same over time: Europe and Northern America. Indeed, in two other regions, South Asia and Southeast Asia, the percentage had fallen lower than the Northern America percentage.

In Northern America, fully 10% of respondents answered that they would like to move permanently. When we asked the folks at Gallup if there was a difference in the responses of Canadians and Americans, they said, no, they were both 10%.

In our minds, this may be even more surprising then our results! You can see a summary of the Gallup results by clicking here.

Good question! When Bob first wrote of the findings from the last 2007 survey in Barron’s, the highly regarded US financial publication, and, as a result, was interviewed by Erin Burnett on CNBC, there was a flurry of interest. Oddly enough, it was not from media in the US, but almost entirely from Asia, Singapore and India primarily. It seemed to be of passing interest to the American media and business world, but nothing more. We accepted that, of course, and went about our business, unrelated to these surveys.

We now have a huge mountain of data from these nine surveys of a total of more than 120,000 Americans over a period of years. It is the only database of its kind. Some day, when relocation becomes of greater interest, we want at least some of this information to be available as it is the only “historical record”, so to speak, on this topic.

Should America Wave and the information it provides create greater interest, we will consider additional surveys in far greater detail as we have done in the past. For the moment, we simply offer this site and its information to the global Internet public.

Thank you for your patience with this long explanation and thank you for visiting our site!

The first is that all age groups, except those 18-24, whose numbers collapsed and were too small to appear in this sample as had been the case with those over 70 in 2009, have jumped above the comparable results in 2007 and 2009.

The second, even more obvious, is that those 25-34 have risen to an astonishing level of 5.1%, roughly one in 20. That is an unprecedented upward shift from all our surveys for all age groups.

This is the first of two points I think need emphasis in this post. The 25-34 age group’s primacy is, in my mind, both bad news in the short term for the US, but potentially good news in the long term. Whether that potential is realized cannot be known now, but it cannot be ignored.

This age group is made up of adults and that must never be forgotten by those, like myself, who are much older. But these adults are better educated than their parents and grandparents, more widely experienced in many respects, and far more mobile. They include many who will be the successful entrepreneurs who create the new products, services, and businesses of the future.

I would suggest that those who are willingly to pack their bags and leave their home nation are also those who are the “risk-takers” and include many of the most creative people in US society. They may only be 5.1% of their age group, but their percentage of those in their age group with this sort of motivation and outlook is likely to be much, much higher. No nation is well-served if these are the people who choose to leave. They are among the most energetic and productive segments of any society, anywhere.

However, this age group is also one of the most “globalized”. For them the global perspective comes much more naturally than it does for older age groups, many of whom are still struggling to understand the changes in the global environment, if they are truly trying at all. This age group has lived those changes and knows them as normal, just part of life. They do not sit and reminisce about the “good old days”; they are looking and working to create their own “good new days” and that requires dealing with today’s reality and trends.

They also represent great potential for the US in years and decades to come. By virtue of their overseas experience, they will know global markets better than their age peers at home. They will pick up new skills, new understandings, new ideas as they work in other nations. They will create businesses overseas that may well be supplied by American firms. They will work for American firms in other nations and benefit the US in that manner. Many will eventually return to the US, bringing their talents and experience gained elsewhere back to benefit their home nation.

I have had Indian friends for years. Many came to the US to study and stayed to become citizens, work, and start businesses that have greatly benefited the US. They came looking for opportunities they could not find at home. Now middle-aged, many are returning to India or seriously considering it for exactly the same reason. They are looking for opportunities.

I have met many of these younger American adults who have relocated overseas. The overwhelming majority are not migrating; they are not seeking citizenship outside the US. They are relocating and that is a major difference between them and my Indian friends. As long as that is the case, they can return to the US at any time and assist in building their home nation directly. Retaining their US citizenship is a very positive sign. God forbid we ever give them reason to reconsider that.

Now on to the second point I would like to offer at this post.

There are reasons for dividing up the total respondents into the age groups shown in the graph above. They roughly represent different “stages” of life in the American context. However, two of them are especially small: those 18-24 and those 70 and older. Due to their comparatively small size, let’s combine each of them with their “neighbor” age group. Then we have 18-34, 35-54 and 55 and older.

These three groups are not equal in size (35-54 is the largest at an average 41%, followed by 55 and older at an average 33%, followed by 18-34 at an average 26%). They don’t change the “story” of the first graph, but they do represent a more “balanced” view by replacing the visual impact of the two small groups at either end, but still including them in the totals.

To me, the most noticeable effect is to emphasize the relative “youth” of those most likely to be at the planning stage in both 2007 and 2011, but also the fact that 2009 was a bad year. Our survey was done in March of that year when not only was the housing crisis well-known, but the stock market hit lows; the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below 6,700 for example. The mood was dark and all three age groups were equally depressed. The crisis continues, the mood has certainly not lightened much, if at all, but now more and more people are looking for opportunity where they can find it and, for a growing number, that is outside the US.

And if you think the 18-24 age group is now completely out of the picture, I suggest you take a look at their interest level.

Younger adults have come roaring back in 2011, but you can also see that the middle-aged and older adults have dramatically increased as well. In the final analysis, although age is a factor, this is a phenomenon that goes beyond mere age. It is a generalized social trend at all age levels. But its impact is especially notable among those Americans most critical to America’s future.

They had six answers to choose from that involved overseas activity, either relocation or purchase of a property, and they chose the most positive one for their answer. The full six answers are found at The Question, the Answers, and the Reasons Why…, the introductory essay at this site.

1.4%, the figure shown for this response in 2007, was the average for this response of all seven of our surveys from 2005 to 2007. When we found that it had fallen sharply to a record low of .8% in March of 2009, we were not surprised. The gravity of the financial crisis was well-understood by then and just to add to the anguish of the time, the Dow Jones Industrial average fell below 6,700. Americans saw both their homes and their stocks drop in value like the proverbial rock.

When I first received the results of the March 2011 survey and saw the 2.5% result, it took a moment for it to sink in. This was triple the 2009 result and far higher than any earlier result. It translates into nearly 3,000,000 households, more than 6,000,000 Americans. It was a complete surprise, but that is the reason we poll. If you want to present a statistic, it has to be one drawn from a valid survey, not from the back of your mind.

Surprise or not, it is this survey’s message, one that led to this website and to the other commentaries here as we look into the details beyind the reality.