twelve - Concluding reflections

Summary

The collection of chapters in this book provides a substantial contribution to our knowledge of return migration in later life. In particular, this book has provided material and analysis that shows how return migration in later life often involves a complex calculation in which certain factors may all claim attention, and be weighed in the balance, when contemplating, deciding on, or enacting, return. At stake are critical issues, including: family ties, obligations and their emotive strengths; comparative quality, and cost, of health and welfare provision in host and home countries; and older age transitions and cultural affinity with homeland.

Such issues are rightly receiving an increasing amount of research attention, although research findings tend to be as scattered, in terms of their reporting, as the countries being studied. This book provides a much needed synthesis of wide ranging, highly relevant studies and also, importantly, brings together key contributions whose fusion promotes a keen appreciation of these issues in respect of their policy and research implications. This concluding chapter summarises important themes, insights and messages drawn from the book as a whole.

Older migrants’ family relationships and responsibilities constitute a highly significant theme in the context of return migration in later life. This is to be expected, perhaps, given Bengtson and Allens’ conceptualisation of the family as a ‘collection of individuals with shared history who intersect within ever changing social contexts across ever increasing time and space’ (1993:470).

Family connections in both home and host country are certainly important to ageing migrants later in life, and location of children in particular can affect decisions, motivations and outcomes as regards return strategies: Ruting's returnees to Estonia (Chapter Eight) visit mainly to rebuild kinship with relatives whose ability to communicate with relatives abroad had been denied by the Soviet authorities; Olsson's political refugees from Chile (Chapter Eleven) similarly prioritise kinship reconnections when considering return from Sweden, despite pragmatic reasons to stay well connected with the diaspora in the host country; Conway and colleagues (Chapter Five) found that lifecourse events may trigger an ability or interest to rejoin family who remained in the home country, providing opportunities for mutual support; and Percival's study (Chapter Six) indicates how family reconnections in the home country, especially with similar age siblings, offer the hope of close and shared bonding that helps replace the loss of spouse, friends or career, bereavements perhaps more keenly felt by the ageing migrant.