Ageing as a Migrant Vulnerabilities, Agency and Policy Implications

Motivated by the steady increase in the population of older migrants worldwide, this book acknowledges the diversity within this population group and provides an interdisciplinary and multi-level approach for studying older migrants’ strategies to overcome vulnerability. The book brings together original research on the topics of diversity among older migrants, social vulnerability, loneliness, (transnational) care and support networks. Based on a review of the growing literature on the topic of older migrants and anchored in the empirical findings discussed in the chapters, the book puts forward a general approach to study older migrants as social actors who develop strategies to surpass vulnerabilities. As documented by empirical research, older migrants mobilise their resources and are able to deal with structural opportunities and restrictions operating at meso and macro levels. These strategies are placed at the intersection between family obligations and resources, social networks, and migration and care regimes. The interdisciplinary and multi-level research in this book acknowledges the heterogeneity within the population of older migrants and puts forward research results that have implications for policies targeting the growing population of older migrants. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Introduction – Ageing as a migrant: vulnerabilities, agency and policy implications Ruxandra Oana Ciobanu, Tineke Fokkema and Mihaela Nedelcu 1. Unpacking the ageing–migration nexus and challenging the vulnerability trope Russell King, Aija Lulle, Dora Sampaio and Julie Vullnetari 2. The role of religion in protecting older Romanian migrants from loneliness Ruxandra Oana Ciobanu and Tineke Fokkema 3. ‘A totally new world has been opening up for me’ – experiences of older German migrants who are actively involved in the German-speaking community in Ottawa, Canada Anke Patzelt 4. Social ties and embeddedness in old age: older Turkish labour migrants in Vienna Monika Palmberger 5. Forms of care among native Swiss and older migrants from Southern Europe: a comparison Claudio Bolzman and Giacomo Vagni 6. Older migrants in Luxembourg – care preferences for old age between family and professional services Ute Karl, Anne Carolina Ramos and Boris Kühn 7. Growing old in exile – a longitudinal study of migrant women from Turkey Anika Liversage and Gretty Mizrahi Mirdal 8. Cross-border mobility and long-distance communication as modes of care circulation: insights from the Peruvian ‘zero generation’ Vincent Horn 9. Transnational ageing and the ‘zero generation’: the role of Moroccan migrants’ parents in care circulation Caroline Zickgraf

Ruxandra Oana Ciobanu is Assistant Professor in the Institute of Demography and Socioeconomics, and research group leader in the Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Gerontology and Vulnerability, at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Her research interests include older migrants, international migration, the welfare mix, transnational processes, and qualitative research methods. Tineke Fokkema is Senior Researcher at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, and Professor of Ageing, Families and Migration at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The central topic of her research is the ageing of populations, in particular the social wellbeing of (migrant) older adults and the patterns of intergenerational solidarity and exchange. Mihaela Nedelcu is titular Professor in the Institute of Sociology at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and project leader within the National Center of Competence in Research "NCCR-on the move". Her research areas include transnational ageing, intergenerational solidarities within transnational families, and migratory dynamics in the digital era.