Crisis has not halted migration hope of poor: Gallup

ATHENS (Reuters) - The global economic recession has not curbed the desire of the world's poor to seek a better future by migrating, Gallup Inc. said on Monday after carrying out a worldwide poll.

Around 700 million adults, some 16 percent of the world's adult population, would move permanently to another country if they had the opportunity, Gallup said in a survey of 135 countries issued at a migration conference in Athens.

"In most countries, people's desire to relocate did not decrease meaningfully after the global economic crisis hit in 2008," said Neli Esipova, the polling agency's director of research for global migration.

Almost eight of ten respondents who said they would like to emigrate were in a developing country, the poll showed. The vast majority of the latter said they would like to live in a developed country.

The United States is migrants' top destination, with 165 million people expressing the desire to move there, Esipova said.

Britain, France, Spain and Saudi Arabia were distant runners-up, less than 50 million people saying they would like to live in each of them.

If all the would-be migrants acted on their desire, some rich countries would see their population swell and some poor ones would be depleted, Gallup said.

The population of Singapore would more than triple and the population of Saudi Arabia, New Zealand and Canada would swell by 180, 175 and 170 percent respectively, according to the poll.

Countries like Sierra Leone, Haiti and El Salvador would lose about half their population, according to the poll.

"But reality does not match desires," Esipova said.

Some 49 percent of respondents to the poll in Central Asian countries expressed the desire to move to nations of the former Soviet Union, but 95 percent of Central Asians who do migrate move to those countries, Esipova said.

Migrants' theoretical wishes often come up against barriers such as visa requirements which force them to move to countries that are not their first choice.

(Reporting by Harry Papachristou; editing by Tim Pearce)