Zimbabwe: once more foreign-born lived here than natives abroad; now 1.52M natives live abroad
everyone alive, 2024
Residents, not a year’s flow. In 1990, 221k natives lived abroad and 635k foreign-born people lived in the country. The balance flipped between 2000 and 2005.
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Two head counts: natives of the country living elsewhere, and people born elsewhere living in it. These are everyone alive now, built up over decades, not a year’s flow and not arrivals minus departures.
Blue is the card’s first number, orange the second; they share one scale. The ring marks where the lines crossed; the gap after it is shaded. The large numbers are the latest year both lines share.
- Emigrant stock thousand persons
221 (1990) → 1,519 (2024)
- International migrant stock thousand persons
635 (1990) → 429 (2024)
Only years where both series are published; gaps are not filled. An overtaking counts if the new leader was behind at the start and ahead in no more than a fifth of the years before it, and it leads in the latest shared year and in at least two shared years in a row. A short dip of up to two years does not end a lead and is named; if the leader was ahead once before, that year is named too. Size thresholds pick a story and do not show that one causes the other.
The UN counts by country of birth, or by citizenship where birthplace is not recorded. Refugees are included. Mid-year estimates every five years and for 2024. Countries where the balance flipped only because the other side shrank (people who had moved within a former common country left or died, refugees went home) are not shown.
A question for this picture
What changed first: jobs at home, jobs abroad, or borders?