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Retirement plans and active ageing: perspectives in three countries
- ANDREA PRINCIPI, SARA SANTINI, MARCO SOCCI, DEBORAH SMEATON, KEVIN E. CAHILL, SANDRA VEGERIS, HELEN BARNES
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- Journal:
- Ageing & Society / Volume 38 / Issue 1 / January 2018
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 22 August 2016, pp. 56-82
- Print publication:
- January 2018
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This study explores whether the plans of older workers on the cusp of retirement are in line with the active ageing agenda set by policy makers in Europe. The study was carried out in Italy, England, and the United States of America (USA). A total of 133 older workers who planned to retire within the next 10–12 months were interviewed (55 in England, 40 in Italy and 38 in the USA) between May 2014 and early 2015 using common semi-structured questions. Active Ageing Index dimensions were used to gauge the orientation of older people towards their retirement. The results of the study suggest that, with some differences, retirement plans of interviewees were substantially consistent with the active ageing perspective. However, some challenges were highlighted, including the need for governments to do more to promote genuine freedom of choice in relation to leaving the labour market, and to provide greater support for informal family carers. Findings also pointed to the need to measure active ageing in connection with individual wellbeing, e.g. by including indicators of leisure activities and by considering the re-weighting of employment and informal care dimensions. Companies could also provide more support during the retirement transition, with opportunities for maintained social connection with former colleagues, and help in making and fulfilling retirement plans.
eleven - Migrant care work for elderly households in Italy
- Edited by Joseph Troisi, University of Malta, Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz
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- Book:
- Ageing in the Mediterranean
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 04 February 2022
- Print publication:
- 21 August 2013, pp 235-256
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Summary
Introduction
The increase in life expectancy is leading to growing numbers of frail older people worldwide, while the potential availability of family and informal care resources – especially from older people's children – is dramatically declining in Europe, due to lower fertility rates, rising labour market participation by women and higher shares of lone-elderly households (OECD, 2005a). Providing appropriate longterm care to large numbers of disabled, very old people therefore represents an increasing challenge to all welfare states, particularly in the light of the preference granted by official policies, in Europe as elsewhere, to arrangements promoting ‘ageing in place’, by enhancing tailor-made home and community care services, and moving away from institutional care (European Commission, 2008). A solution that is increasingly being adopted to tackle this challenge is based on the employment of migrant care workers, a discreet and to a large extent invisible trend that is giving rise to a sort of ‘ethnic segmentation’ of the elder care sector across Europe (Lamura, 2013). Italy is one of the countries where this phenomenon has become most widespread. Due to the overlapping of increased female employment, generous cash-for-care schemes and a still ‘familistic’ approach to elder care, in the last decade an increasing number of Italian families have indeed opted to privately employ a migrant care worker, often on a live-in basis, in order to provide support to their frail older family members. In this chapter, after a short introduction on the global and European situation, a more in-depth overview of the main trends currently affecting the demand and supply of elder care in Italy is provided, including an outline of the motivations driving Italian families to employ migrant care workers as well as of the difficulties experienced by migrant workers themselves. The conclusion analyses the opportunities and challenges for receiving as well as sending countries, in an attempt to set an, albeit provisional, agenda for future research, policy and practice in this still largely neglected area.
Migrant care work in ageing societies: the phenomenon in a global and Mediterranean perspective
One of the major concerns resulting from population ageing is that expenditure to provide ‘formal’ long-term care services (services that are delivered by public, profit or non-profit organisations to dependent, mainly older, people requiring continuous assistance) are expected to increase worldwide (Oliveira Martins and de la Maisonneuve, 2006)