air travel have coincided with the surge in global migration. Image: Berit Kessler/Shutterstock
Which five countries have the highest number of citizens living abroad?
By Coby Schlosberg
Transcending social, economic, political and environmental spheres, migration is a hugely significant process in our modern world. While discussion and policy often concentrate on immigration and its impact on the receiving country, less often discussed is emigration.
More than 280 million people now live outside their country of birth. The convergence of push and pull factors, coupled with lower barriers to movement, means that people are leaving their country of origin to seek a better life.
With improvements in communications and transportation, it is easier than ever to emigrate, as journeys across borders have become cheaper, quicker, safer, and better understood. Push factors drive people out of their country, these include unemployment, wars and natural disasters. Migrants are attracted to a new country by the pull factors, which can range from a better standard of living to a cleaner environment to democratic freedoms.
Using data from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, we rank the top five countries with the highest number of citizens living abroad, in reverse order. These five countries are responsible for 20 per cent of global migrants.
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5) Russia – 9.13 million citizens living abroad
Political upheaval, economic change and war have led to Russia having over nine million citizens living abroad.
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine is believed to have prompted between 500,000 and a million departures. This war has crippled Russia’s economy, with international sanctions making it even more of a pariah on the international stage. Russians have emigrated because they disagree with the morality of the war, they want to avoid conscription and because they have a fear of speaking out and long for democracy. This is more than compounded by Russia’s economic struggles.
Back in the 20th century, emigration from the former Soviet Union was heavily restricted by the government. This meant that when the Soviet Union fell, with the accompanying economic and political crisis of transformation, emigration spiked. It is estimated that 2.1 million people left Russia between 1992 and 1994.
Fast forward to 2026, and an estimated 1.6 to 2 million people have emigrated from Russia under Vladimir Putin’s premiership.
Many Russians live in fear; speaking freely against the government is extremely dangerous, and the fact that the emigration statistics above rely on independent, non-governmental estimations is symbolic of a government that has engaged in multiple forms of oppression against people inside and outside of its borders.
The problem for Russia is that its emigres tend to be younger and better educated than the average Russian citizen. This is creating problems in the labour market, with a brain drain and labour shortages occurring.
Russian emigrants are typically in neighbouring Eastern European countries, which have cultural ties to Russia from the old Soviet Union and have a lower language barrier. Armenia has 110,000 Russian emigrants due to the war with Ukraine alone. In total, however, many Russian emigrants, particularly those of a higher socio-economic status, are located in the EU and the USA.
Most Russian emigrants are unlikely to return any time soon. This has created a negative attitude from the top in Russia towards emigrants, and there is talk of possible punishments, including the seizure of assets. At the same time, they would take many of these people living abroad back in a heartbeat.
This contradiction goes far in revealing how behind the 9.13 million figure is a vicious cycle of processes driving a precarious economic and demographic situation in Russia – the country has a modest GDP per capita, yet a population that is ageing, similar to highly developed countries.
4) Ukraine – 9.77 million citizens living abroad
Since gaining independence after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine has faced major economic challenges and, as of 2022, a major conflict, which has contributed to 9.77 million of its citizens living outside of the nation.
The war with Russia has fundamentally altered Ukraine and created the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. There are now 5.9 million Ukrainian refugees globally as a result of this war. Due to martial law in the country, the majority are women and children. Similar to the Russians who have left their country due to the war, these refugees tend to be more highly educated than the average Ukrainian. Refugees have primarily fled to European countries such as Poland and Germany.
In truth, the war has increased what was already a significant number of Ukrainians abroad. Estimates reckon between three and five million emigrated between 1990 and 2006. This helped remittances to account for nearly 10 per cent of the country’s GDP in 2020. As time has passed, Ukrainian citizens abroad have become increasingly concentrated in Western countries rather than in countries that were part of the Soviet bloc.
The key contrast is that pre-war emigration was largely voluntary economic migration, as people sought higher wages and a better standard of living. It was also more temporary – many migrants would return after achieving their goals, mainly revolving around remittances. On the other hand, post-war emigration is more forced, driven by efforts to save livelihoods, and is expected to be more settled, as citizens are not only unsure of when the war will end but also fear for Ukraine’s long-term future.
As in Russia, the large number of citizens living abroad has contributed to a population decline that was already a challenge before the war. A demographic crisis is occurring as one of the harsh impacts of war, with many men either fighting in the war or sadly a casualty of it.
3) Mexico – 11.6 million citizens living abroad
Image: Chess Ocampo/Shutterstock
The large number of Mexicans living abroad has much to do with its proximity to the USA, where entrenched cultural links exist, particularly in the Southern states, and where migrant networks have been built up over generations. Above all, the economic disparity between Mexico and the USA has meant that nearly all Mexicans living abroad are in the USA – 97 per cent in fact. Canada and Spain, with 87,000 and 61,000, respectively, are the next two most popular destination countries.
The ‘Migration Hump’ goes a long way in explaining the massive numbers of Mexicans living abroad. It is middle-income countries such as Mexico which see the highest emigration rates. Many people here do have the means to migrate as a result of ‘good’ wages and education. However, there is often a lower ceiling on an individual’s standard of living in countries like Mexico than in higher-income countries. This compels many people to consider alternative countries, such as the USA.
Mexico’s GDP per capita is US$14,185 compared to US$84,534 for the USA. This huge difference between the two neighbouring countries is the fundamental top-down force behind the number of Mexicans living in the USA. Many Mexicans leave to seek better economic opportunities. Often temporary, many are unlikely to stay long in the USA, particularly due to difficulties obtaining citizenship, which very few Mexicans end up receiving. Instead, remittances are central – US$64.7 million worth of remittances were received by Mexico in total in 2024, the highest on record for the country. 96 per cent of it originated from the USA.
Although on average, Mexicans living in the USA are less educated than the US average, as in most countries with large-scale emigration, Mexico is dealing with a brain drain, with younger and highly skilled workers leaving in search of better opportunities elsewhere.
It is worth noting that although the number of undocumented Mexicans in the USA is believed to be around 5 million, Mexico’s share of the total number of all undocumented immigrants in the USA has been steadily decreasing.
2) China – 11.7 million citizens living abroad
China has long been one of the principal source countries of emigration worldwide. As early as the 17th century, there was a considerable flow of people into neighbouring countries. European colonies in Southeast Asia and the resulting competition created a strong demand for Chinese workers who were often themselves desperate to leave tough economic conditions. Despite a geographical shift in destination, the practice of employing Chinese workers as a reliable source of cheap labour evolved.
Venture into virtually any major foreign city, and there will be a Chinatown. This is symbolic of high concentrations of Chinese emigrants. Although there are valid concerns about a lack of social assimilation, whether in the construction of infrastructure or the creation of new businesses, Chinese emigrants have made significant economic contributions wherever they have gone.
After emigration restrictions were relaxed by the People’s Republic, there was a surge in emigration. Between 1979 and 1985, 350,000 people left China. Chinese emigrants have increasingly been moving to North America and Europe. Higher education has played a larger role in driving emigration in recent years. Many have since returned to China to play a role in the country’s modernisation.
Chinese emigration causes problems for China, with a brain drain compounded by an ageing population. However, emigration has also been used as a vehicle to expand Chinese capital and influence. In Africa, where there are now an estimated 1 million Chinese migrants, Chinese workers have played a fundamental role in the construction of critical infrastructure as part of the Belt and Road Initiative.
China faces an interesting divergence in the types of emigration. High-skilled and high-value emigration has been increasing since the late 2000s, whereas low and unskilled emigration has remained stagnant. This chasm is referred to as upward concentration and correlates with increasing incomes in China. With many wealthy Chinese increasingly looking at opportunities abroad, despite the country’s rise as a superpower, there is clearly some existing anxiety or discontent.
1) India – 18.53 million citizens living abroad
The most populous country in the world, India, has so many citizens living abroad that the country accounts for six per cent of all global international migrants. Indian emigration has a strong historical legacy. British colonial rule made emigration an intrinsic part of society. After the abolition of slavery, millions of Indians were relocated to colonies across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. This was a coercive process with heavy demographic legacies today. Predating and together with the partition of India in 1947, Indians relocated to Southeast Asia along fractured ethnic and religious lines. Still today, it is religious minorities who are disproportionately more likely to leave India.
Today, nearly half of all Indian migrants are in the USA, UAE and Pakistan. There is a strong concentration in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC) where Indians provide a reliable source of cheap labour – these are almost always men. It is this type of low-skilled migration that helps vast amounts of remittances flow into India. The country received US$87 billion in 2021, the highest remittance flow in the world.
Emigration from India is multi-faceted, and over time, the country has increasingly been providing higher-skilled and tech specialists as part of emigration flows. This is related to a growing share of immigrants in North America and Europe. In the USA, where there are over three million Indian immigrants, the success of the Indian population is clear. They are highly educated and have higher incomes than the overall foreign and US-born populations.
It is worth noting that the Trump administration has recently stopped the issuance of H-1B visas, which were heavily used by Indians as a route into the USA. This echoes growing anti-immigration sentiments in much of the West, which is a contrast to what has come before.
India’s economy is growing rapidly. However, this is not necessarily being manifested in terms of development, with an extremely high amount of income inequality and a persisting religious and ethnic breakdown. This is contributing to all types of people emigrating from the country in search of a better standard of living.
With previously reliable destination countries for Indian emigrants increasingly turning to the forces of populism and anti-immigrant rhetoric, the future is unclear. What is clear, however, is the seismic contribution of millions of Indian citizens in economies across the world.
