Older migrants, health and well-being

Despite the growing interest in, and empirical research on, migrants’ health and well-being, few studies on these topics concern older migrants. Previous studies show that in addition to classical determinants, other migration-specific stressful factors negatively affect older migrants’ subjective well-being in the destination countries. In general, it is acknowledged that migrants at arrival have an initial advantage in terms of health compared to the native-born population, but migrants’ initial advantage is lost over time. The results concerning older migrants are mixed and strongly depend on the context, the migrant groups studied, and the health outcome considered in the analysis. Previous results show that migrants’ health at older ages depends not only on the number of years since migration but also on age upon arrival. Moreover, the empirical evidence show that older migrants have a higher life expectancy at age 65, lower rate of chronic disease but worse functioning and higher rates of disability. Previous studies have some limitations providing a fragmentation of country-specific studies, focusing on one or a few migrant groups in one destination country or analysing only one health dimension and limiting the analysis to cross-sectional data.