Senior citizenship?
Retirement, migration and welfare in the European Union
By Louise Ackers and Peter Dwyer
Published
Jun 26, 2002Page count
232 pagesISBN
978-1861342645Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy Press
Senior citizenship?
This book charts the development of mobility and welfare rights for those citizens exercising their right to move or return home on retirement under the Free Movement of Persons provisions and explores their experiences of international mobility. It is set within the context of 'Citizenship of the Union'.
Senior citizenship? draws on substantial primary research material to:
combine detailed analysis of the framework of EU rights shaping social with in-depth qualitative interviews involving retired migrants across six member states (Greece, Portugal, Italy, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Ireland);
describe and evaluate an innovative approach to comparative enquiry that combines biographical interviews with legal and qualitative analysis;
highlight the diverse nature of retirement migration encompassing the experiences of returning workers, migrating retirees and post retirement returnees.
Topics are explored thematically in the context of comparative social policy, raising important and topical issues around the future of social citizenship and the implications of the exercise of agency, in an increasingly global and mobile world.
"... very rewarding ... should be read for the strong sense of dynamic it generates in recounting the aspirations, efforts and strategies of many older Europeans who can claim only a very liminal form of citizenship." Critical Social Policy
"Louise Ackers and Peter Dwyer have exceptional insights into the evolution of European citizenship, particularly as it bears on the welfare entitlements and residence rights of those who move from one member state to another. Their research makes an original and distinctive contribution to the debates on 'a social Europe'." Tony Warnes, Sheffield Institute for Studies on Ageing
Louise Ackers is Jean Monnet Professor in European Law and Director of the Centre for the Study of Law in Europe at the University of Leeds. She has directed a number of projects concerned with the legal aspects of mobility within the EU, citizenship and comparative social policy.
Peter Dwyer is a Lecturer in Social Policy at the Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds. His research focuses on social citizenship and welfare reform.
Contents: Introduction; Citizenship, well-being and agency in the European Union; Shades of citizenship: the legal status of retirement migrants; Movements to some purpose?; Health/care, well-being and citizenship; Money matters; Moving and caring; Conclusions: retirement migration: the challenge to social citizenship?
