Daily Lessons from Life 22 August 2010 - Singapore most desired by migrants: Gallup poll

"Singapore most desired by migrants: Gallup poll - Sun, Aug 22, 2010 AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Singapore remained a top immigration hot spot for the second successive year in a global survey conducted by Gallup.

The city-state could see its population triple if everyone who wants to move here was allowed to, the poll released last Friday showed.

It found that, in that case, Singapore's population of 4.8 million would increase by 219 per cent.

Switzerland made the list for the 1st time and 800k of it's citizens want to leave while 10m immigrants want to live there. USA is still the most desired destination but the Potential Net Migration Index (PNMI) is low as its population is 200+m!!"

Gallup will poll anything that it can sell for money!! That's my opinion. It is also called: Products/Services Innovation!!

For me, the fact that there are 800k of Switzerland's citizen wanting out is sufficient reason to ask the question: WHY? Never mind the 10m wanting to get it. They don't know what they don't know! :-)

Lessons for me are:

1. we should not fall prey to the Survey trap;

2. if we are listed at the top of any Survey that are viewed positively, we should be humble and not gloat about it. More importantly we should investigate if the Survey has any real value and if we can be better!!;

3. we don't see the number of Singaporeans wanting to leave the country though the potential number of people wanting in is almost 3x Singapore's population. Hence, one is not sure if being at the top of this list really means Singapore is the most desired country to migrate to. The critical test is really in asking the citizens who plan to leave: WHY? and then improve upon the issues raised, where reasonable.

May Singapore really is a desired destination for the new migrants as well as the existing citizens. That, to me, is much more important!!