Joe Parkinson

The Americans are definitely coming, and not just for holiday.

Places that you've read about a little bit, like Portugal, like Italy, but it's also happening in places that you wouldn't perhaps know.

Countries are very, very interested in attracting Americans because they bring capital with them and they bring know-how.

The government hasn't kept accurate data on that since around about the Eisenhower administration.

What we needed to do was basically look at the other end of the telescope.

So instead of looking to the U.S.

government, go to every country, find the data, pull the data to try and create a picture of how many Americans were actually moving abroad.

And as we went through that data, a historical pattern began to emerge.

This is not a new story entirely.

What's changed to magnify the numbers in recent years really are big shifts in technology and things like remote work that you can now work for an American company but be based in Lisbon, in Bali, Mexico City.

That wasn't really possible five years ago, let alone 20 years ago.

The kind of Americans that are doing this has really changed.

Once upon a time, it used to be very well credentialed people, perhaps on assignments for blue chip companies or retirees.

Now it's people of all stripes, young families, students, single people.

I think affordability is a big one.

There's also a sense of safety.

One motif that kept coming up with young families was the idea of gun violence, which has become more and more of a problem.

There was also the idea there weren't life balance.

They'd be able to get away from the perception in America that your time is very, very squeezed.

And then there's the unavoidable situation.