The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published its OECD Migration Outlook 2018, and it shows that the number of Indians that have migrated to rich OECD countries have doubled since the beginning of this century and are heading to newer destinations.

It published the results based on the data available for the latest year, that is, 2016, which showed that India occupied the fourth place in the highest number of migrants (2.71 lakh). The top three countries on the list were China, Romania, and Syria, in that order.

According to its analysis of historical migration data, the countries that Indians choose to migrate to have diversified. While in the 2000s the most popular destinations were the UK or the USA, today it many migrants choose other countries like Australia and Germany. In fact, Australia received the highest number of migrants from India in 2016 as per the OECD data.

The migration pattern of Indians moving to the UK and the US has reduced from a more than 50 percent in the first decade of the century to only 37 percent in 2016.

The share of Indian immigrants to Canada has also reduced since 2000s and is now roughly equal to the share of Australia. On the other hand, Indians immigrating to Australia and Italy have risen in 2016, according to the OECD.

Indians topped the list of foreigners that acquired the nationality of an OECD country in 2016. The others included in the top five were Mexicans (second), Moroccans (Third), Filipinos (Fourth) and the Chinese (fifth).

The top 5 OECD countries that Indians chose to migrate to in 2016 were:

1. The United States of America
2. The United Kingdom
3. Australia
4. Canada
5. Italy