This article examines the impact of economic inequalities on the individual choices that North European retirees make when they migrate to Mediterranean countries. It considers a group of retired and early-retired migrants who live permanently in Spain and have limited economic resources. Through a qualitative methodology based on semi-structured interviews with retirement migrants as well as ethnographic observations and spontaneous conversations in the study site, we provide new sociological knowledge about the relations between retirement migration and the unequal risks of social exclusion that retirees must manage in Northern Europe. We find that for many of these migrants, moving represents a way of managing economic risks in retirement, improving their financial situation and status. At the same time, however, it introduces new vulnerabilities. The latter are all the more visible when unexpected political changes occur, such as the recent decision that the UK would leave the European Union (Brexit).
Population ageing has led many countries to be concerned about the ‘economic burden’ of elders, and several have adopted the active ageing paradigm to reform policy. However, gender differences that moderate the effect of active ageing have been little considered. As in other nations in the European Union, Swiss federal authorities use the active ageing paradigm to reshape ageing policies, including the provision of incentives to seniors to remain in the labour market. At the same time, many recent and proposed changes draw on the assumption of gender equality, even though actual parity has not yet been demonstrated. We know little about how gender shapes retirement in Switzerland, other than in relation to financial inequality between women and men. Qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with Swiss retirees (N = 15) shows how men and women describe this time of life differently. All respondents characterised retirement as a time of freedom; but the meaning of such freedom diverged for men and women, reflecting the gender division of labour, which is further shaped by class. We discuss the implications of this difference for the gendered consequences of active ageing policies.
People who migrate in retirement often do so to join younger generations who have already migrated, and to help with grandchildren. But what about those retirees who migrate away from their families? Do they still provide grandparental support? To address this question, we examine retirement migrants who reside permanently in their new country, Spain. We find that they are aware of grandparental support expectations, and that their migration decision sometimes creates conflict with their offspring. At the same time, these retirement migrants reshape the meaning of grandparental support. Care considerations influence their destination and housing choices, and they continue to provide care. They feel that their familial relationships are now of a higher quality, despite the distance. At the same time, gender still emerges as a key dimension of grandparental support. The grandparenting of these retirement migrants challenges facile depictions of their motivations and of the equation of quantity and quality of contacts.
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