Forty percent of young women have said they would like to leave the U.S. permanently, according to polling data, more than twice the number of men who feel the same way.
The sharp rise in younger women wanting to emigrate has helped create the large gender gap, and the 2025 21-point difference is the widest ever recorded by Gallup, Axios reported.
Survey data released by Gallup shows a dramatic emergence from just 10 percent of women who felt this way in 2014.
Partisanship plays a significant role in the divide, with 60 percent of women aged 15 to 44 expressing support for left-leaning and Democratic policies, compared to 39 percent of young men and 53 percent of older women aged 55 and above.
In 2010, men and women were roughly tied at about 15 percent wanting a new life.
The chasm between the two genders is the largest ever recorded by the pollster, with no other country registering a higher gap since records began in 2007. Only Zambia and Malta match the United States’ dissatisfaction level among women. Through the 2000s and early 2010s, American women were statistically the least likely demographic to express a desire to emigrate. The number rose sharply in 2016 towards the end of Obama’s second term and has continued to climb ever since, peaking at 44 percent during Joe Biden’s final year in office and remaining around that level for most of the year.
The figures show a stark contrast to those of men, whose numbers have hovered around the late teens for most of the past decade, briefly peaking to 25 percent in 2024.
While the study notes that a desire to move is not the same as concrete plans, the aspiration itself is a powerful indicator of discontent. The climb in women wishing to move abroad, the findings conclude, is therefore driven by young women experiencing a larger drop in institutional confidence than any other demographic.
