Northern European international retirement migrants are often viewed as affluent and use migration as a route to a better quality of life. However, as these migrants transition into the ‘fourth age’, the onset of age-related illnesses, frailty and care needs can lead to increased levels of risk and insecurity. Through 34 qualitative interviews with older British migrants in Spain, the paper explores how these migrants access and experience care as they age. It draws on a lens of precarity that allows an understanding not only of individual care needs, but of the political, economic and social context in which they are situated, including social protections and public safety nets. The findings suggest that distant family relationships and limited access to formal social protection can both create and exacerbate precarity. These older migrants therefore develop different strategies to access care that include drawing on informal relationships and voluntary organisations within the British community in Spain. The paper contributes to understanding how international retirement migrants manage their care needs, and theoretically extends our understanding of how the intersection of old age, migration and care can create new forms of precarity.

Introducing the special issue, this paper provides a state-of-the-art on established and new trends in the study of international retirement migration (IRM) and summarises the five papers that follow. Early studies on IRM were mainly within Europe and drew on the conceptual framework of lifestyle migration, with some reference to the transnational and mobilities paradigms. New frontiers in IRM are presented under three heads. Firstly, new geographical frontiers extend IRM to new destinations within and proximate to Europe, and to new locations in the global South such as Thailand and Ecuador. Secondly, new typological frontiers involve a broadening of the class and wealth backgrounds of the retirees, including the ‘return of retirement’ of labour migrants to their countries of origin, and attentiveness to IRM's gendered aspects. Thirdly, new conceptual and theoretical frontiers of IRM involve a more in-depth investigation of its transnational aspects, exploration of the various regimes of mobility and, most importantly, a political economy perspective which stresses global inequalities and histories of colonialism in shaping access to privileged lifestyles. In the final part of the paper, the original features of each paper in the special issue are highlighted, demonstrating how they are collectively integrated and contribute to the advancement of IRM research.

The article extends notions of ‘active’ and ‘successful’ ageing by exploring the narratives of ageing in the retirement migration of Canadian and American older adults in Cuenca, Ecuador. The article is based on 83 semi-structured qualitative interviews (11 of which are follow-up interviews), most conducted in the first half of the 2010s. I explore how notions of finite time and imaginaries of a fourth age of decline and death inform the migration decisions and imaginaries of Canadian and American retirement migrants. I argue that their desire to seek self-expansive, new experiences through migration and contact with cultural difference dialogues with an increasingly competitive neoliberal culture of ageing, that emphasises success through activity, youthfulness and consumption. While there are certainly other ideals that help inform North American migration to Ecuador, I argue that these particular ideals illustrate how discourses of ‘active ageing’ have been taken up ‘from below’, by ageing North American adults, many of whom identify with the aspirations of policy and corporate discourses of activity and success, but who find themselves ageing into material conditions that preclude them. Migration to a lower-cost country, like Ecuador, helps them to experience these aspirations more positively, but may have uneven effects on lower-income workers and their ability to remain in place in the communities marketed for this type of migration.

Mexicans are the largest immigrant group in the United States of America (USA) and are ageing rapidly. Few studies investigate whether older immigrants return to Mexico for different reasons than younger immigrants. Using the Mexican Health and Aging Study (N = 952), we examine whether Mexican immigrants in the USA who returned to Mexico at age 50 and older report different reasons for returning than those who returned at younger ages. Few immigrants (regardless of age) returned for economic reasons. The most commonly reported reason for returning for both groups was missing family. However, the odds of selecting missing family over illness as their main reason for returning were lower for older immigrants than younger immigrants after controlling for the duration of their stay in the USA and other socio-demographic factors (odds ratio (OR) = 0.27; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.11, 0.68). Results indicate that older immigrants were just as likely to report returning due to economic reasons and migration problems as they were to report returning because of illness (OR = 0.57, 95% CI = 0.15, 2.21; OR = 0.41, 95% CI = 0.12, 1.43). While existing research shows that older immigrants in the USA typically experience fewer migration problems and are often more economically stable than younger immigrants, our research suggests this may be entirely due to the duration of their stay in the USA.

Recent years have seen a growth in research on retirement/lifestyle migration to Spain, however this has tended to focus on the reasons for moving, as well as the lifestyles adopted as part of a healthy and active retirement. However, ageing in Spain can bring challenges as a person's resources for independent living diminish. This paper draws on narrative interviews with vulnerable older British people in Spain, focusing on those who have encountered a severe decline in health, are frail and in need of care. It looks at the formal and informal networks and agencies that support these individuals, in particular the resources and strategies they employ to access care. Drawing on a framework of care provision developed by Glucksmann and Lyons, four broad modes of provision for old age care used by older British people in Spain are identified: state/public, family/community, voluntary/not-for-profit and market/for-profit. The paper argues that there are language, cultural, spatial and financial barriers when accessing care in Spain as an older British citizen. It is concluded that there are some frail, vulnerable people that may fall through a support gap, whereby they are no longer the responsibility of UK welfare services, yet not fully recognised in their new country of residence, and asks if more should be done to support this population.

Volunteering is a ubiquitous and distinct feature of the British retired community in Spain, and for many older migrants volunteering constitutes a significant part of their post-retirement life abroad. Especially in the management and organisation of health and age-related problems voluntary organisations have come to play a crucial role not only for the British community but also for the Spanish host society and public health-care system. Furthermore, volunteering represents a valuable sphere of activity offering personal benefits for those who are actively engaged. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a charity organisation in the province of Alicante on the northern Costa Blanca, this paper examines the extensive functions that volunteering and charitable activities can offer British older migrants. The implementation of voluntary work within the specific context of retirement migration is identified as a multi-functional individual and societal resource. Volunteering for the retirees is described as a true means of adaptation to a new life context, and as a highly reflexive strategy of risk minimisation and self-realisation. This implies individual benefits and opens up possibilities of active ageing. Finally, volunteering will be analysed as a performative expression of transmigrants' cultural bifocality, reflecting both a high level of commitment to Spain as well as a specific feature of British community spirit and traditionalism.

Most studies of retirement migration in the United States focus at the national level, and there is comparatively little information about the retirees who cross international borders in their search for new homes. Retirement migrants are unusual in that many select destinations in less-developed countries, contrary to the general pattern of migration from poor to rich countries in search of jobs, higher incomes and a better standard of life. This study has examined the reasons for retirement migration from the United States (US) to the Lake Chapala area of the Mexican state of Jalisco. A non-random sample of 211 US retirees was surveyed using a self-completion, semi-structured questionnaire that included items about the decision to move to Mexico, the quality of life at the destination, cultural adaptation, and aspects of personal identity, financial security and health-care. Four major reasons for migrating to Mexico were identified: financial circumstances, the natural environment, a sense of community and friendship, and a better quality of life. While the migrations contradict much taken-for-granted and popular knowledge about migration patterns around the world, they have important implications for the ways of life, social relationships and welfare of the most recent cohort of older people. More in-depth multidisciplinary studies are needed to increase understanding of this evolving phenomenon.