More than half of Pakistanis would consider moving abroad in search of better opportunities, according to the WIN Worldviews Survey 2026, released by the Gilani Research Foundation and Gallup and Gilani Pakistan. The survey, carried out across 45 countries, found that 52 per cent of respondents in Pakistan would consider leaving the country, above the global average of 46 per cent. That gap tells a story about how many people here feel that opportunity, security and a better standard of living may lie somewhere else, even if leaving is far from a simple decision.
The headline number breaks down as follows. Forty per cent of Pakistanis said they would move abroad if they could do so legally, while a further 12 per cent said they would consider moving regardless of the conditions. On the other side, 48 per cent said they would prefer to stay in Pakistan, and less than one per cent did not know or gave no answer. In other words, the country is split almost down the middle. A survey of this kind measures willingness, not a plan already made: saying you would consider a move is not the same as finding a visa and starting again in a new country.
The most striking part of the findings concerns young people. Among Pakistanis aged 18 to 24, the pattern reverses. Fifty-six per cent of young respondents said they would prefer to stay in Pakistan, while 44 per cent would consider moving abroad. Of those young people open to a move, 36 per cent said they would go if they could do so legally, and 8 per cent said they would consider moving regardless of the conditions. That differs sharply from young people worldwide, where 66 per cent would consider moving abroad, including 51 per cent legally and 15 per cent regardless of the conditions, while only 27 per cent would prefer to stay.
Why would Pakistani youth, who face some of the toughest pressures in the jobs market, be less eager to leave than their peers elsewhere? Part of the answer may lie in family ties and a sense of belonging that a single survey question struggles to capture. Many young Pakistanis weigh any move against what it would cost their family, not just what it might gain them personally. Others may be more realistic about how hard legal migration has become, with tighter visa rules, higher costs and longer waits in many destination countries.
The survey also places Pakistan alongside other countries, and those comparisons matter. In Vietnam, 40 per cent of young people said they would move abroad if they could do so legally, while only one per cent would move regardless of the conditions, and 59 per cent said they would prefer to stay. In Germany, 46 per cent of young people would consider moving legally and 20 per cent would move regardless of the conditions. In France, the corresponding figures were 43 per cent and 27 per cent. Pakistan’s young people therefore sit closer to Vietnam’s stay-at-home majority than to Germany and France, a reminder that the desire to migrate is shaped by local conditions, not by age alone.
Behind these aspirations lies large-scale actual movement. In 2025, more than 762,000 Pakistanis registered with the Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment to work abroad, with the Gulf states the most common destination. The money those workers send home has become a pillar of the economy, reaching about 38.3 billion dollars in formal remittances in the year to mid-2025. Those inflows support millions of households and help meet the country’s foreign exchange needs, even as economists warn that depending so heavily on the earnings of people who have left is no substitute for creating good jobs at home.
That tension sits at the heart of the debate about so-called brain drain. When doctors, engineers, teachers and managers leave, hospitals, classrooms and firms lose experienced staff who are hard to replace. At the same time, migration can bring skills, savings and networks back, through returning workers, diaspora investment or families who use remittances to educate the next generation. The survey does not settle that argument, but a majority of adults being open to leaving is itself a signal to policymakers about wages, job security, merit in hiring and the quality of public services.
What happens next will depend less on any single survey than on whether young Pakistanis find reasons to stay that go beyond loyalty or inertia. Secure work, fair pay, honest recruitment and a sense that effort is rewarded turn a preference to stay into a decision to build a life at home. If those conditions improve, the 56 per cent who already say they would stay could become the foundation of a different story. If they do not, more of those who today would only consider a move may begin to treat it as a plan. For now, the survey captures a country divided but not resigned: more than half of its people can imagine a life elsewhere, yet its youngest adults are still more likely to say they would rather stay.
