For the twelfth consecutive year, the UAE has been named the country where most Arab youth want to live.
The results, compiled by the fifteenth ASDA’A BCW annual Arab Youth Survey, released by ASDA’A BCW, were based on interviews with 3,600 people between the ages of 18 and 24. Participants spanned 18 countries. The UAE’s key attributes were its safety and security, according to 41 percent of respondents, its growing economy (28 percent), effective leadership (24 percent), a clean environment (22 percent), and ease of starting a business (20 percent).
The United States and Canada ranked second and third for the third year respectively.
The UAE was also widely praised as a good place to raise a family (19%), for its plentiful job opportunities (17%), the quality of its schools (16%), its strong cultural identity and heritage (16%), and generous salaries (13%). The ease of obtaining a UAE residency visa was another plus point for 12% of respondents.
Remarkably, three of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries – the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – appear in the top five ideal countries for the first time in nine years.
Young Arabs said they currently prefer to live in Qatar more than the UK, while Saudi Arabia ranks fifth with the UK in the list of countries that Arab youth want their countries to emulate.
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The survey, released by ASDA’A BCW this year under the title ‘New Reality, Changing Outlook’, is the most comprehensive survey of the region’s largest population of more than 200 million young people.
The UAE has remained the country of choice that most Arab youth want their countries to emulate for the twelfth consecutive year.
Twenty-two percent of young Arabs, in general, were in consensus on this placing the UAE ahead of the United States (19 percent), Canada (16 percent), and Qatar (15 percent), while Saudi Arabia and the UK together came in fifth place (11 percent).
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