Out of the Labour Market: Intra-EU Return and Retirement Migration

Abstract

The post-1990 era witnessed complex, diverse, and dynamic human migration flows created by the realities of globalization, liberalization, and flexibility. Contemporary migration has considerably reduced the dichotomous distinctions between ‘migration’ and ‘mobility,’ between ‘temporary’ and ‘permanent,’ and between ‘home’ and ‘away’ (King 2002). Recent enlargements of the European Union (EU, refer to Table 11.1) and implementation of the Schengen Agreement have generated multifaceted transnational mobility flows that include the permanent return of former guest-workers, the repeated return of circular migrants, and the frequent return of expatriate retirees. Intra-EU return migration and circular migration have gained renewed and increasing importance. Since the 1980s, return migration has been on the national policy agendas of numerous EU Member States. Indeed, it has “emerged as a critical element of many governments’ migration policy” (International Organization for Migration 2004, 7). Retirement migration is demographically and spatially focused. The ability of mobile pensioners to adeptly exercise, manipulate, and exploit their EU citizenship rights pose a considerable challenge for social security and welfare systems at various spatial scales, especially at the local/municipal level within the receiving countries (Coldron and Ackers 2009). Issues of accessibility, delivery, reciprocity, and funding have arisen due to increasingly mobile (and nested) populations of contributors, recipients, and claimants. Consequently, intra-EU return and retirement migration have (re)gained importance among academics and politicians, especially since these streams involve mutual migration among EU Member States (e.g. Dustmann et al. 1996; Hall and Müller 2004; Klinthäll 2006; Constant and Zimmermann 2007; Smallwood et al. 2008; Fassmann et al. 2009; Kahnec and Zimmermann 2009; Kahnec et al. 2009).