Migration of the Aged

Abstract

This article is restricted to a consideration of the reasons why migration of the elderly has increased over time, why it will increase still further, and why the migration of the elderly proceeds from diffuse points of origin to quite specific destinations.

Social bonding strategies in the context of retirement migration to nonmetropolitan areas in the United States—Insights from Michigan and North Carolina

“…The spatial mobility of older people moving to nonmetropolitan areas has been observed in the United States since the 1970s, a period that is viewed as the rural turnaround. However, while the overall migration flow to nonmetropolitan areas weakened a decade later, the relocation of elder people to small towns and communities remains relatively stable (Brown & Glasgow, 2008; Brown & Wardwell, 1980; Fulton et al, 1997; Johnson & Cromartie, 2006; Lee, 1980). Retirement migration contributes significantly to demographic ageing in rural America, although out‐migration, especially of young adults, also plays a significant role.…”

“…It covers the regions of the Upper Great Lakes and Southern Appalachia, which are important retirement destinations, although, much less studied than Sun belt states, especially Florida and Arizona (Brown & Glasgow, 2008). Thus far, existing studies on retirement migration in the United States were focused either on consequences of the retirees' presence for their new communities in terms of economic and social capital (e.g., Brown & Glasgow, 2008; Glasgow et al, 2013; Haas et al, 2006; Lee, 1980), or, more recently, international spatial mobility of older Americans, especially to Latin American countries (e.g., Benson & O'Reilly, 2018). Existing research on social bonds in the context of retirement migration is rather scattered and refer mostly to the Sun belt area, for example, in terms of snowbirds' intergenerational ties, friendships (Bjelde & Sanders, 2012), chain migration phenomena (e.g., Longino et al, 1991), or informal networks within European American retirees' ethnic groups (e.g., Stoller et al, 2001; Stoller, 1998).…”

Preference of Spatial Mobility and Reside in the Suburbs Indonesia

“…Hansen's model is based on the assumption that the accessibility of job opportunities is the main factor that determines the population growth of a location. Hansen states that the relationship between the location population and employment opportunities can be expressed in an accessibility index, which defines each zone as having accessibility to employment opportunities [17].…”

Mother, grandmother, migrant: Elder translocality and the renegotiation of household roles in Cambodia

“…As a result, the lack of attention directed towards the older, non-working, and homebound members of translocal households in migrant societies constitutes a key gap in geographic knowledge. Not only is their presumed lack of an economic role (Burholt, 1999; Lee, 1980) largely erroneous, but their role in normative change, too, is signally underexplored. As shown herein, both migration systems themselves and the changes to household roles they engender are actively engaged with not only by waged workers, but by carers and supportive family also.…”

“…Indeed, so effective has been the excision of older people from the migration literature that, as Vullnetari and King (2008: 142) note, ‘a veil has been drawn over this issue’, leaving research in this area ‘surprisingly limited and almost entirely recent’ (Vullnetari and King, 2008: 142). This lacuna derives largely from two premises that underpin the migration literature: first, that older people are ‘relatively unimportant in the economic process’ (Lee, 1980: 131), and second that their migration patterns are so inextricably linked to lifecycle (Coulter, 2013; He and Schachter, 2003; Lee, 1966; Litwak and Longino, 1987) as to constitute ‘an almost universal pattern’ (Fischer and Malmberg, 2001: 357).…”