scholarly journals International retirement and later-life migrants in the Marche region, Italy: materialities of landscape, ‘home’, lifestyle and consumption

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Russell King ◽  
Eralba Cela ◽  
Tineke Fokkema ◽  
Gabriele Morettini

Abstract Within the general framework of ‘lifestyle migration’, the paper explores three materialities associated with the arrival and settlement of British, German and Dutch later-life migrants in the Italian region of Marche, a relatively new ‘frontier’ region for international retirement migration. The first is about the aesthetics of landscape and the scenic and emotional qualities of the physical and social environment. The second concerns ‘home’, where we examine house types, property location and home-making practices in terms of ‘authenticity’, material objects and the cultivation of land for productive purposes. The paper's third thematic focus is on consumption patterns. Most of the 69 participants interviewed for this study hanker after what they perceive as a simpler, more genuine way of life, in tune with the surrounding mixed-farming agricultural environment and distinct from other regions where tourism has taken hold. Many grow their own produce, including some who have small vineyards and olive groves. They enjoy shopping in local markets, eating out in inexpensive local hostelries, visiting museums and cultural festivals, and exploring the many pretty villages and historic towns of the region. The participants embody later-life migration as ‘active ageing’, but those who are older and/or frailer must consider, often reluctantly, the reality of a less-active and more isolated life in the Italian countryside.

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Aija Lulle

Abstract This paper reworks the notion of active ageing through analysis of a case which reverses the retirement-migration nexus – people in the post-socialist realm who approach retirement age and then migrate to begin a new working life. They are thereby introducing a new and complex arrangement to the general concept of ‘international retirement migration’. In the post-socialist world, new retirement migration frontiers emerge in the context of a severe weakening of welfare systems. I illustrate this case with data from long-term research with ageing Latvian migrant women to the United Kingdom and the Nordic countries. Even those whose old-age pensions are more or less adequate nevertheless seek temporary employment and new cultural experiences abroad. However, the dominant trend has been towards the pauperisation of older parents and those approaching retirement age due to the significant decline in state welfare. This case of many older-age Latvians who de facto cannot retire due to low disposable income reveals ‘reverse frontiers of retirement’: working as long as they can, pushing their personal geographical frontiers outward by emigrating for work and making national frontiers more porous through transnational practices. Conceptually and geographically, the research holds relevance for a wider discussion of trends and contextual factors in other post-Soviet and post-socialist countries with increasing diversities among retirees.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Zhuoyi Wen ◽  
Ka Ho Mok ◽  
Padmore Adusei Amoah

Abstract The population aged 65 years and above in Hong Kong is projected to rise from 15 per cent in 2014 to 38.4 per cent in 2069. Therefore, the quest for creating age-friendly conditions and the promotion of active ageing has become a priority for the Hong Kong Government and stakeholders in the city. Using a cross-national comparative framework for productive engagement in later life, this article examines the predictors of productive engagement (perceived voluntary engagement) in two districts (the Islands and Tsuen Wan) of Hong Kong – a typical productivist welfare regime in Asia. Data were collected through a social survey to ascertain the perception of an age-friendly city and active ageing in 2016 and 2018 from 1,638 persons aged 60 years and older. The results indicate some differences in the perception of the key determinants in both districts, but the factors associated with productive engagement were consistent, namely social atmosphere, social provisions and the built environment. The findings are discussed within the broader discourse on social gerontology, age-friendly cities and productivist welfare regimes.


2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingo Zasada ◽  
Susana Alves ◽  
Felix Claus Müller ◽  
Annette Piorr ◽  
Regine Berges ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Suwaree Ashton ◽  
Noel Scott

Purpose This paper aims to investigate Thai stakeholders’ perceptions of developing a destination for international retirement migration (IRM). Increasingly, residents of developed nations such as Japan who retire from work are choosing to live in Thailand or other less-developed countries. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative approach was used, and data were collected through focus groups and in-depth interviews in Chiang Mai and Bangkok. Content analysis technique was used to analyze data after completing the interviews of 35 industry participants. Findings It was found from the participants that considerable new real estate development and services specifically for these retirees has been created in recent years, but that there is a lack of stakeholder collaboration in catering to this market. Moreover, local resident knowledge of the retirees’ culture and language is lacking, along with a need for policy and planning support from government. Research limitations/implications A limitation of this study is that it explored only the perception of business stakeholders involved with Japanese IRM, a group of importance to the Thai Government due to their increasing numbers. Further study could look at local community attitudes toward IRM and how a community adapts to this new phenomenon. Practical implications This study provides guidelines for stakeholders, government and local communities. Especially, the role of government is to provide support with clear information about the visa process and legal documents. Originality/value This study contributes to the body of knowledge of destination development strategy for a specific international retirement tourist group.


2004 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 657-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALAN WALKER

This article introduces the seven specially commissioned papers in this special issue of Ageing & Society from the projects funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council's Growing Older Programme. The ESRC Programme has been the largest single investment in social sciences research on ageing in the United Kingdom. It comprised 24 projects and, when operating at full capacity, 96 researchers. The article details the background to the Programme, its commissioning process, its eventual structure and how it operated. Then a selection is made of some of the ways in which the Programme has contributed new knowledge to social gerontology. No attempt is made to achieve comprehensive coverage of the Programme's topics but rather a selection is presented of the new insights generated under its six themes: defining and measuring quality of life, inequalities in quality of life, technology and the built environment, healthy and active ageing, family and support networks, and participation and activities in later life. The projects were spread unevenly across these themes but important new knowledge has been produced under each theme. The conclusion emphasises the scientific contribution of the Programme and especially the extent to which older people's own attitudes, aspirations and preferences have been at the forefront, but it questions whether or not policy makers and practitioners will use this major evidence base.


1952 ◽  
Vol 8 (21) ◽  
pp. 128-148 ◽  

Henry Drysdale Dakin was born at 60 Fitzjohn’s Avenue, Hampstead, London, on 12 March 1880. He was the youngest of a family of eight, there being five brothers and three sisters of whom one brother and two sisters now survive. His father, Thomas Burns Dakin, had previously owned a sugar refinery in London, and when this came to an end he acquired an iron and steel business in Leeds, and the whole family removed to Yorkshire. After a brief spell at Merchant Taylors’ School, H. D. Dakin entered Leeds Modern School in 1893 and remained there for the rest of his school life. Five of the old boys of this school became University professors, and of these may be mentioned H. H. Turner, Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, and H. M. Dawson, who was the first Professor of Physical Chemistry at Leeds, both of whom were elected to the Fellowship of this Society, and the latter, who was a few years senior to Dakin at school, became his personal friend at the University. Some years ago this school, which was formerly in the centre of Leeds, moved to the north of the city and was organized as four Houses, one of which is known as ‘Dakin House’; and thus Dakin’s memory is kept green in the school, and his story and prestige have become a part of the school’s history. Assistant to analyst After leaving school Dakin was apprenticed to the Leeds City Analyst, Mr T. Fairley. He remained in Fairley’s laboratory for four years and in later life he ascribed a great importance to the experience which he gained there. An analyst in this position held many public appointments which brought a great variety of work to the laboratory. Among other offices Fairley held that of official gas referee, and this involved a good deal of analytical work—such as tests for sulphur content—involving attendance at gas works, and this work usually fell to the lot of the senior apprentice of the time. Accordingly, much of Dakin’s early life was spent in the precincts of gas works. In spite of long working hours, however, he found time to become an angler. One of his holidays in later years was spent fishing in Ireland with his friend, Harold Dudley. Dakin was inclined to trace a connexion between this period in Fairley’s laboratory and his later interest in biochemistry, because of the experience he gained from the many analyses of water, foods and fertilizers which came his way, as well as from the examinations made for a number of poisons. He admitted, indeed, that he had revelled in books on medical jurisprudence; but he claimed that all this had helped him to realize that chemistry had a biological side.


2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (10) ◽  
pp. 1975-1986 ◽  
Author(s):  
CLAUDIA BELL

ABSTRACTThe two movies aboutThe Best Exotic Marigold Hotel(2012 and 2015) were directed by John Madden. Starring a cast of famous British older actors, the narratives are set in a faded hotel in India. These are individuals who have relocated because their retirement dreams cannot be realised in their home country. They reflect the growing phenomenon of international retirement migration (IRM): the quickly growing upsurge of financially independent individuals seeking an affordable old age. In India they can claim a position of relative comfort and privilege. For a generation that grew up in a consumerist culture, upward mobility in the senior life stage has become a purchasable commodity through exodus to a developing country. This generation of retirees is generally in better health compared with prior seniors, with a longer life expectancy. Many have a background of travel experience, and an ethos that places their own pleasures in life as pivotal. While global numbers are unavailable, it is estimated that there are millions of retirees relocating to less-developed countries for an affordable retirement. At retirement locations such as the Marigold Hotel, the discrepancies that continue between nations, and local poverty, enable this practice. The events in these movies might be read as a recapitulation of imperialism expressed through retirement migration.


2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone E. Pfenninger ◽  
David Singleton

AbstractWhile there is a growing body of research on second language acquisition (SLA) in children, adolescents, young and more mature adults, much remains to be explored about how adults in later life learn a new language and how good additional language learning is for them. Our goal in this article is to survey and evaluate what is known about the linguistic, socio-affective, neurobiological and cognitive underpinnings of the second language (L2) learning process in older individuals, the extent to which L2 acquisition may be seen as contributing to healthy and active ageing, and how these phenomena are to be approached scientifically, methodologically and pedagogically. Our view is that a developmental enterprise as complex as L2 learning in senior adulthood and its effects in later life cannot be explained by a single theory or set of principles. Furthermore, we take it that L2 acquisition in the third age needs to be regarded not just as a goal in itself but as a means of promoting social interaction and integration, and that it is partly through the stimulation of social well-being that its cognitive effects may potentially be observed.


2020 ◽  
pp. 002198941989730
Author(s):  
Sushmita Sircar

The world wars definitively changed the relations with the state of the peoples of India’s northeastern frontier. The wars were both fought on their terrain (with the invasion of the Japanese army) and led to the recruitment of people from the region to serve in the British Army. The contemporary Anglophone Indian novel documents the lingering effects of this militarization in the many insurgencies that have fragmented the region in the postcolonial era. Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss (2006) depicts the Gorkhaland uprising of the 1980s in the Kalimpong district of West Bengal, which demanded a separate state, while Easterine Kire’s Bitter Wormwood (2011) describes the Naga peoples’ traditional way of life against the backdrop of attempts to declare independence from the Indian state. In this article I argue that these novels capture how these secessionist movements use the experience of the world wars to craft a political identity based on military brotherhood to claim independence from the Indian state. These movements thus undertake a complex reworking of the valences of the figure of the “soldier”, central to so many accounts of national integrity. At the same time, reproducing the nationalist logic of the Indian state, these novels more readily recognize an “indigenous” identity based on a claim to the land as the political basis of nationhood. Hence, these novels about secessionist struggles reveal how certain narratives of nation formation become the only legitimate means for making claims for political rights and independent statehood over the course of the twentieth century.


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