Returning ‘home’ after retirement? The role of gender in return migration decisions of Spanish and Turkish migrants

Abstract

This paper examines how gender plays a role in the decision-making processes of older migrants on where to live after retirement. It is based on 20 in-depth interviews with Spanish-born migrants and 56 in-depth interviews with Turkish-born migrants who spent their working lives in the Netherlands and returned to their country of origin or started moving back and forth between both countries after retirement. Existing studies on return migration have shown that women are often more reluctant than men to settle back in their country of origin, yet these studies also acknowledge that more in-depth research should be conducted on the role of gender in migrants’ decision-making on return migration. In this paper, we examine, firstly, why our female respondents were often more reluctant to return and how this influenced the decision-making processes of couples or families. Secondly, we analyse how the different citizenship statuses of the respondents (Dutch, Spanish, Turkish and/or European) influenced their decision-making and how citizenship interacted with gender differences.