Swimming against the current: The migration of elders to the south

Abstract

Every day there are more elderly people who decide to live in a different country from their country of birth. This phenomenon of older migrants reveals a distinct counter-current from the economically more-developed Northern countries to the less-developed and developing South, therefore requiring a new and different theoretical analysis that does not fit into the pre-existing frameworks of labour migration and development. For some researchers, these migrants are considered residential tourists, who have no home or place of belonging neither in the developing and less-developed areas nor within existing theoretical frameworks. In order to conceptualize trends and identify the patterns of this phenomenon, this investigation will examine the migration of retirees and/or pensioners from the northern hemisphere who have settled in Vilcabamba (Southern Ecuador) through a theoretically informed engagement with key informants and a series of qualitative semi-structured interviews. It is hoped that this project will enable further research in this largely uncharted line of research on the flow of migration that 'swims against the current'.