"Fierce Survival Competition" If Given a Chance, Koreans Leave... Countries Preferred by Overseas Migrants

Popular English-speaking countries with easy settlement and good living conditions
"High immigration reflects the limitations of Korean society"

Approximately 17,000 people have emigrated from Korea over the past five years. Additionally, Koreans still prefer English-speaking countries as immigration destinations.

According to data submitted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Hwang Hee, a member of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, a total of 17,664 people emigrated overseas in the past five years.

It is reported that the number of overseas emigrants was around 10,000 annually until the early 2000s. Looking at the annual trend, the number was 6,664 in 2018, then sharply decreased to 4,412 in 2019 and 1,941 in 2020 following the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it rose again to 2,015 in 2021 and 2,632 last year.

Also, 1,938 people emigrated based on family relationships such as marriage, classified as kinship migration, while 1,001 people emigrated for reasons such as employment at foreign companies or business migration, classified as non-kinship migration.

Street view of New York, USA

Among the migrants, 14,725 were local migrants rather than overseas emigrants. This mostly means that they left the country for other purposes, stayed locally, and then obtained permanent residency or equivalent long-term stay status.

The country most sought after by emigrants was the United States, with 8,458 people, accounting for 47.9%. Canada, with 3,553 people (20.1%), ranked second, followed by Australia with 1,415 people (8.0%). Japan (1,150 people, 6.5%) and New Zealand (722 people, 4.1%) also had many emigrants.

When combined, English-speaking countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand accounted for 80.1%. The reasons appear to be that many Koreans have already settled there, making it relatively easier to adapt locally, and the living conditions such as education for children, jobs, welfare, and weather are favorable.

Representative Hwang pointed out, “The increase in overseas migration is not unusual in the global era, but it also reflects the limitations of our society, where people are driven into fierce survival competition, face anxiety about the future, and find it difficult to express individual diversity.”

He added, “National-level consideration and measures are necessary to create quality jobs domestically and prevent the outflow of talented individuals abroad.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.