Retirement Migration and Precarity in Later Life

Abstract

The number of international retirement migrants moving from rich countries in the Global North to poorer European countries and to the Global South has increased over recent decades. Some migrate seasonally, while others relocate permanently. Their geographic movements are often attributed to lifestyle motivations, such as a search for new adventures. Based on interviews and fieldwork among a diverse sample of retirees from the UK, Switzerland and the US who moved permanently to Spain, Costa Rica and Mexico, this book reveals different dimensions of retirement migration, focusing on its emergence from diverse forms of precarity in later life. In particular, the authors demonstrate that such geographic movements often reflect migrants’ search for more economic security, social integration and access to health and social care. In their exploration of the motivations and experiences of their respondents, the authors situate these in the context of retirement migrants’ home and host countries’ welfare state policies.