Who are the digital nomads? Age statistics and assumptions

Analyzing 4,000 polls and survey responses from English-speaking digital nomads around the world have yielded some interesting findings which are worth mentioning. The composition of the researches has been done by “A Brother  Abroad” ^[1] A Brother Abroad. 16 April 2021. 63 Surprising Digital Nomad Statistics in 2021. https://abrotherabroad.com/digital-nomad-statistics/#Digital-Nomad-FAQs.

Who are the digital nomads? Age Statistics

• There is almost equal distribution between men and women, with 49.81% being women and 50.19% men.
• Most digital nomads are Caucasians (European descent) with 76%, while the next categories with a big difference are Latins (Spanish descent) with 10%, Asians with 8% and colored (African descent) with 6%.
• 51% nationalities of the total digital nomads worldwide, belong to 4 countries. More specifically, the 31% is from USA, 8% Portugal, 7% Germany and 5% Brazil. The remaining 49%, represents 35 other countries.
• The average age of digital nomads is 40 years. However, most digital nomads, 47%, are in their 30s Ages 29, 33 and 39 are the most common among digital nomads and uniformly make up 23% of their total.
• Although 61% of respondents said they started their journey as nomads in their 20s, 39% said they start at 30 or later
• The digital nomads whose answers were studied, traveled for an average of 6.1 years, while 85% traveled for more than 1 year.

While there is not so much difference between the sexes, it seems that Caucasian digital nomads from the US are significantly more than the other categories.

Assumptions based on the data

Moreover, despite the perception that digital nomads are mostly young, most tend to be more mature and choose this kind of lifestyle from time to time, at different phases of their lives. Evidence from this study showed that many digital nomads at their late thirties and beyond, who reached a level of success and experience in their careers, were allowed to choose a remote way of working and later to start a small business.

Younger age groups studied, commonly ages of 29 and 33, are individuals who left mid-career and and attempted a transition or a full career change. The oldest digital nomad in this study was 72 years old!

The conclusion of this research is that the journey as a nomad can be started or continued at any age.

According to the above data, it seems that the audience of digital nomads appears broader in terms of age, and not only related to the “carefree youngsters”, nor it always concerns a life decision, as has been reflected by many so far.

Finally, we cannot ignore the economic situation of the digital nomads, which seems to confirm the belief that digital nomadism is related to the global economic divide and  will concern people of the middle or upper economic class who will not be based solely on the ‘gig economy’ as they do now ^[2]see more on the issue of Ohnmacht , T., Maksim ,  H.,  Bergman,  M,(Eds). 2009.  Mobilities  and  Inequality. Ashgate.,  Thompson, B. 2018. Digital Nomads: Employment in the Online Gig … Continue reading.