The determinants of elderly migration in France

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study elderly migration in France. First, it analyses whether the decision to migrate relies upon individual characteristics. Second, it examines the ways in which the economic, social and environmental characteristics of the French territories determine the retirees' choice of localization. The paper draws upon a unique database of 12.67 million French inhabitants, with information about their personal attributes and locational choices from 2003 to 2008. It also uses an original database with locational characteristics for the French territories at the level of the 364 zones d'emploi. This is the only study on regional migration in France which builds upon such a thin spatial level of analysis. The paper builds empirical probit and Heckman models dealing with selection bias and endogeneity bias issues. The paper shows that retirees usually leave large agglomerations and old industrial areas in Northern France and the Paris agglomeration and relocate to socially and environmentally attractive zones with preferable climates. When studying the migration patterns within the zones d'emploi, it appears that the most vulnerable zones, which display a lower quality of collective services as well as higher income disparities and crime rates, feature lower elderly residential mobility.

Spatial variation of elderly population and its dynamics in Turkey

“…Additionally, Sun‐belt Coastal District attracts elderly population by in‐migration as absolute change of elderly population in these settlements are positively affected by Sun‐belt Coastal District variable—in a sun‐belt settlement, in southwest Turkey, we expect an increase of 510 elderly on a five‐year period. This result is in line with the results obtained by similar studies, for example, Schaffar et al (2019). Specifically, effects of Sun‐belt Coastal District is interpreted to be more effective on life‐style in‐migration of elderly, associated with Activity Theory in addition to Disengagement Theory.…”

“…Income may be a good indicator for relative attractiveness of a settlement. Other related studies also support use of income variable for elderly migration (Schaffar et al, 2019). Another locality variable is taken from indicators of well‐being index produced in 2015, that is, Health Satisfaction .…”

“…In Canada, elderly migration is regarded as a significant portion of internal migration (Marr & Millerd, 2004). Retirees in France prefers to “relocate to socially and environmentally attractive zones with preferable climates” (Schaffar et al, 2019, p. 951). As there has been an influx of young workers into wealthy north western European countries (Fassman & Munz, 1992), there is a strong tendency among pensioners in these wealthy countries to live in the southern Europe countries on the Mediterranean shore (Bahar et al, 2009; Balkır & Kırkulak, 2009; Warmes, 2001).…”

Global Elderly Migrations and Their Impact on Health Care Systems

“…Studies conducted in France showed that factors such as location, cultural, and environmental amenities, a high quality of rendered public and private public services, and low crime rates mattered in seniors when taking decisions whether to migrate or not within a country and beyond it ( 28 ). The decisions connected with migration of seniors may be therefore derived from a combination of various factors, but one of the key motivators appears to be a comfortable access to medical care, where one of the determinants of which is the number of health care professionals acting on the market of health services, based on the data we used to conduct this analysis, as presented in the previous section.…”

Best living concepts for elderly homeowners: combining a stated choice experiment with architectural design

“…Much of this literature focusses on location choices. It shows that senior households move to places with highly valued consumer amenities including health care, high temperatures and low taxes (Chen and Rosenthal 2008;Önder and Schlunk 2015;Dorfman and Mandich 2016;Graves and Waldman 1991;Kim 2011), closer to their place of birth (Schaffar et al 2018) or to their children (Bonnet et al 2010). As for housing choice, elderly seem to choose for a smaller dwelling size (Bian 2016; Eichholtz and Lindenthal 2014; Painter and Lee 2009), shared living (Engelhardt and Greenhalgh-Stanley 2010) and rental housing (Herbers et al 2014;Angelini and Laferrere 2012).…”