Time to Get Out
The Dutch are leading the way in the new exodus from Europe. Last year's number confirm that the Dutch are experiencing the largest net outflow of people since the post-war emigration boom of the 1950s.
By Pieter Dorsman
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“listen: there’s a hell
of a good universe next door; let’s go”
– E. E. Cummings
Setting up a farm in New Zealand? Start up a business in Tasmania or do you like to cash in on British Columbia’s construction boom?
All these options were presented at a real ‘Emigration Fair’ in Amsterdam earlier this month which drew record crowds. Whatever pessimism there is in and about Europe and no matter how commentators try to figure out if this exodus is real, the market has smelled the opportunity and knows how to respond.
As opposed to “Give me your tired, your poor” many jurisdictions in the new world have discovered that the disgruntled Dutch are anything but tired and poor. They’re young, affluent, well-educated, entrepreneurial, fluent in English and smart enough to have figured that the time has come to get out as the future can no longer be found at home.
The numbers corroborate this trend. In the first nine months of last year a record number of Dutch packed their bags with some 100,000 leaving the country, an increase of 12% on the previous year. For this year another increase is expected and, according to some research bureaus the overall attitudes about leaving are changing as well.
This year some 32% are seriously considering a move as opposed to 26% last year according to the ‘Emigration Monitor’. What is even more revealing is that the 20 to 30 age group constitutes the largest group of leavers, a trend that got further momentum when one polling group figured out that about half of the nation’s adolescents would, given the chance, prefer to pack up and go. Last year’s number confirm that the Dutch are experiencing the largest net outflow of people since the post-war emigration boom of the 1950s and the remarkable attitude shifts will ensure that this trend will persist in the years to come.
Less reliable figures are being presented when it comes to determining why so many feel it is time to vote with their feet. A random survey of the recent news reports makes it clear that in terms of negatives the Dutch have basically got it all: high population density, an over-regulated society, a significant tax burden, soaring crime rates, a general sense of ‘dilapidation’ and a huge unintegrated pool of Muslim immigrants. While they’ve had little influence over inheriting a relatively small plot of land, it is the vast expansion of a powerful and omnipresent public behemoth that appears to be at the root of most of the nation’s current problems. And for its origins we probably have to go back to the sixties and seventies.
The rapid post-war economic expansion enabled the establishment of a well-funded bureaucracy that would over time be equipped with a set of tools to ensure what the predominant left of those days would call the ‘makeability of society’.
At the same time the general social and cultural liberalization contributed to an unprecedented level of individualism, allowing citizens to do pretty much as they liked knowing that the government would always be there as some sort of guarantor of last resort. In other words, it doesn’t matter what you do, someone will always be there to fix your problem.
In practice that is exactly why the nation experiences so much vandalism and intentional damage to public property by hooligans and youngsters: they have long stopped to identify themselves with a community, public property is impersonal, and someone else will surely fix it. So who cares? Another great example is garbage disposal which is now so heavily regulated and expensive that many just dump their weekly dose of household leftovers along the highway, much cheaper. The more government interferes, the fewer citizens take responsibility, and the more decay you tend to see around you.
The bureaucracy at the same time has been without any of the tools required to maintain order in an increasingly rudderless society. The Dutch justice system is a case in point as one of the most lax on the entire planet, believing as it does - another 1960s legacy - that even the worst offenders should have a chance to re-enter society. In recent years many severely deranged offenders were able to escape from half-way houses where they were being prepared for a return to society, a problem that remains unaddressed as of today.
Not only maximum security felons were able to get a great deal and the opportunity to re-offend. Earlier this month Dutch press reported that since 2005 some 3,400 immigrant youths - notably Moroccans and Cape Verdians - had been treated to vacations back to their home countries to ‘reconnect with their culture’ in the bizarre hope that such a trip to the sunny south would minimize their chances to re-offend. Of course, the Dutch taxpayer has kindly footed the bill leaving some commentators to note that in America the holidaying offenders would probably have ended up on a chain gang.
So in all you have decay, crime, incompetent bureaucracies, unfettered and mismanaged immigration. But didn’t the Dutch opt for change in recent years? It is revealing that foreign media still mistakenly think that the recent political turmoil in the Netherlands has turned the nation to the right and that the much vaunted Dutch pragmatism is once more delivering some clever solutions. Not really, and to some extent it hardly matters if a right or left of center cabinet is in charge. Powerful public servants wield the sort of power that allows them to continue to pursue a re-engineering of society that has long since stopped finding takers among those Dutchmen able to look beyond the now very near horizon.
And the opportunities are there for the taking as there is a New Europe in the east and north where low asset prices and space are available to those who do not want to venture far across the ocean. But many have discovered that what the Dutch have lost can still be found in the New World. If you pitch it to them in the right way as was done on the Emigration Fair, you might just get them.
Pieter Dorsman studied law and obtained a Master’s degree in Economic and Social History at the Erasmus Universiteit in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. After graduation he joined Barclays Bank PLC in London following which he held a number of senior positions at UBS in Hong Kong. He currently lives in Vancouver where he advises early stage technology firms on their business and financing strategies.
Pieter is the force behind Peaktalk, a weblog about international politics, economics and culture. Some of Peaktalk’s posts have appeared in the National Post, one of Canada’s largest newspapers and more recently Pieter’s columns have appeared on Pajamas Media. Pieter has also appeared on a number of radio shows in the US and Canada to talk about European news and developments.
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16 Comments
Victoria:As British expat, and immigrant in the United States, I know all too well the lure of the emigration process.
My own blogpost centres around your topic above, and contends that immigration smacks of betrayal for some — but today, is that true?
Or is it those who stay behind, tolerating their country to be changed beyond recognition, the ones who might be said to be betraying their identity?
Cheers,
Apr 4, 2007 - 12:53 am Virginia Postrel:Victoria
The statistics demonstrate that the Dutch are leaving the Netherlands, not that they’re leaving Europe. Any figures on destinations?
Apr 4, 2007 - 8:43 am pch1013:Nor is it clear that the Netherlands is “leading the way” when it comes to emigration. For example, more than half of Britons surveyed in August 2006 said they had considered emigration at some point:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5237236.stm
Apr 4, 2007 - 11:02 am Clayton Hickey:The numbers in this article are out of context. How many people in any country are considering leaving? How many Americans, Aussies, or Canadians would happily move to Holland, given the chance?
Apr 4, 2007 - 2:21 pm SWLiP:I’ve noticed a lot of Dutch in the Czech Republic, over the years. Just this summer we visited a nice countryside inn in South Bohemia that was owned and run by a Dutch family. They were lovely people. An older member of the family who was waiting tables claimed to be having an awful struggle with learning Czech, though.
Apr 4, 2007 - 3:06 pm Pieter Dorsman:Clayton: the numbers are not out of context although I agree that opinion polls taken are debatable. Yet, what is important here is the trend and the acual emigration numbers that corroborate what has been recorded anecdotally.
As for Virignia’s question, here is a post I did a little while back which contains the most recent numbers as released by the Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS), which is probably as reliable as it gets:
http://www.peaktalk.com/archives/002475.php
It doesn’t give the full picture, but I think it underlines a trend. Will update these with new numbers on my blog if and when they are released by the CBS.
Apr 4, 2007 - 4:38 pm bernie:How many Americans, Aussies, or Canadians would happily move to Holland, given the chance?
Silly question. Who would want to go live in a country filled with Muslims?
Apr 4, 2007 - 6:03 pm planck's constant:I linked to your post from my article It’s the demographics, stupid - the Flight from Islam, Excerpt: I expect to see in my lifetime a number of formerly Christian countries in Europe turning Muslim. There are five reasons for this dismal, frightening prognosis…
Apr 4, 2007 - 8:29 pm vogz:I’m going to go out on a limb and predict this issue shows up in a Mark Steyn column soon.
Apr 5, 2007 - 6:34 am Bob:I left Holland 2 years ago headed for Ireland.
Apr 5, 2007 - 9:38 am gcblues costa rica:as an american expat i see expats from europe canada and the usa everyday. a large percentage are like me on the run business people, self employed types, job creators etc that are simply fed up with high taxes and stupid regulations. we do not need you, but the countrys we left sure needed us ….too bad ….. think again about 1/2 the people supporting the other half, it is stupid inorganic, and unsustainable ……. i think soon all that will be left are the unemployed and public employees …. the usless dependant whining losers that think we need to pay their freight. one small prob …. we do not have to, we can make it anywhere….ciao ciao ciao
Apr 5, 2007 - 2:14 pm pch1013:“Who would want to go live in a country filled with Muslims?”
Halliburton executives.
Apr 5, 2007 - 3:03 pm Victoria:“Who would want to go live in a country filled with Muslims?”
For goodness’ sake…so that no one gets the impression this comment went unchallenged by a Pajamas Media reader, let me pipe up and say, “there’s nothing wrong with a country with Muslims”.
I live in the United States now, a country which is chock-full of Muslims.
The problem is that when you have a national identity that centres around a melting pot idea, and freedom of religion, it is completely different from an unintegrated population, who somehow uses their religion as a battering ram over that culture.
That is what is to be avoided, be they Muslim, Catholic, or whatever.
Cheers,
Apr 5, 2007 - 11:09 pm Brian H:Victoria
Extreme individualism and super-nanny state; quite a combo!
BTW,a grammar syntax hint: in “they have long stopped to identify themselves with a community”, use the gerund, not the infinitive, thus: “they have long stopped identifying themselves with a community”. The infinitive form means “stopped in order to …”.
Apr 7, 2007 - 7:18 am Jim M:From a friend who is an American Expat living with her husband in a suburb of Amsterdam:
Thanks for the article. Actually, I saw a television news report on the same subject about a year ago (the article must have been based on the tv program or vice versa - as a lot of it was word-for-word the same). Holland is funny in some regards. There are more foreigners than native Dutch in Amsterdam, for example. And yes, there are large segments of the native population that blame the problems of the country on the ‘immigrants’. But, in the past I have reminded friends and coworkers that I, too, am an immigrant. The answer is usually the same: “We don’t mean YOU. You work for a living and contribute to society.” Show me a place where this same discussion doesn’t take place these days. The Cubans in Miami; the Haitians in Belle Glade. Every EU country is flooded with construction workers and prostitutes from Eastern Europe. Even poor African countries get refugees from war-torn neighbors these days.
There are 3 points the article fails to mention that it should. First, the Dutch have always had a certain amount of wanderlust. For the college enrolled or educated, especially between the ages of 20-35, there is a certain prestige in working outside the borders, especially overseas. Ex-pat jobs are almost the brass ring of the corporate world, but in recent years, they have become more and more difficult to find. Companies are no longer willing to foot the entire bill to give employees the privilege of working in another country. However, they will make jobs available, just without paying more than a normal wage for the job. Now, if you move to another country to work, normally you have to register with the government of the foreign country and TADA! you can be classified as an immigrant. Are you really, though? If it’s only the intention to work for a few years and then go back home, you haven’t really settled, have you?
The second point is just the sheer irony of the damn thing. Dutch are leaving Holland because they are fed up with too many immigrants. So what do they do? Go to another country and become the same problem that was their reason for leaving the Netherlands the first place. Guess it’s okay when it’s someone else’s problem, huh?
The third point that should have been mentioned is the rising anti-immigrant sentiment throughout many EU countries. There is a rise in conservative parties and more and more nationalistic ones are getting elected every year. Even countries like Belgium and Denmark (Denmark???) have ultra conservatives gaining popularity. About 5 years ago, a Dutch politician named Pim Fortuyn rose very quickly in power. He was openly gay, very charismatic and one of his most famous quotes was “Holland is full” — meaning no more immigrants. Of course, he was gunned down in a parking lot, by an environmentalist of all things, but dead is dead. His party was elected, but fell apart without him there to lead. Yet, with all this anti-immigrant sentiment, people are still relocating in record numbers. A little paradox there, huh. Guess it all comes down to the old song: “The English hate the French, the Germans hate the Dutch, and I don’t like anybody very much…”
BTW - the lead story on msnbc.com today: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17954186/
Apr 9, 2007 - 6:36 am J.J.:Guess all that stuff about global problems is pretty much right on the money.
Lots of Dutch in the mountains of north-east Bohemia too, buying up properties and fixing them up. Apparently, Dutch pensions and other social benefits enable the Dutch help offset the risk of moving to a new country, where life is cheaper.
Apr 9, 2007 - 8:45 pm