Abstract
Ageing is the key demographic trend in Europe. Migration is the second major phenomenon shaping European population structure, introducing a further dimension to the ageing challenge, namely, ageing populations with diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Nonetheless, the phenomenon of ageing migrants is surprisingly understudied.
The chapter proposes a modified version of the Active Ageing Index (AAI) for the migrant population using data from the first wave (2004/2005) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) in seven European countries. It aims at both verifying whether the AAI is a good index for a population with a migratory background and stimulating the political and academic debate on the necessity to address vulnerabilities and active ageing of older migrants within the framework of an inclusive multicultural Europe committed to social justice.
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Notes
- 1.
We focus on the first wave since countries in this wave present the highest percentage of non-native respondents. In the appendix (Table 11.2), we report an exhaustive description of the variables used in our analysis as coded in the SHARE Manual.
- 2.
In other words, for a given indicator, the value achieved for a single unit of analysis was multiplied by SHARE’s sampling weights, that is the number of people that each individual represents.
- 3.
We don’t account for the last age group 70–74 years old, because of the absence of observations for some countries.
- 4.
The results for migrants in Belgium are biased for the missing value in the indicator ‘no severe material deprivation’.
- 5.
This is mainly due to the lack of such information in wave 1 of SHARE that does not collect information on individuals or households that cannot afford certain basic needs such as the possession of a television, car, telephone, washing machine and so on. Accordingly, material deprivation is computed only taking into account the ability of a household to make ends meet.
- 6.
Data are available at: http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.688
- 7.
Values are standardized using the max-min method.
- 8.
See http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Pages/international-standard-classification-of-education.aspx for a definition of ISCED code and its comparability across countries.
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Acknowledgements
This chapter uses data from SHARE Waves 1 (DOIs: 10.6103/SHARE.w1.260). The SHARE data collection has been primarily funded by the European Commission through the FP5 (QLK6-CT-2001-00360), FP6 (SHARE-I3: RII-CT-2006-062193, COMPARE: CIT5-CT-2005-028857, SHARELIFE: CIT4-CT-2006-028812) and FP7 (SHARE-PREP: N°211909, SHARE-LEAP: N°227822, SHARE M4: N°261982). Additional funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research, the U.S. National Institute on Aging (U01_AG09740-13S2, P01_AG005842, P01_AG08291, P30_AG12815, R21_AG025169, Y1-AG-4553-01, IAG_BSR06-11, OGHA_04-064) and from various national funding sources is gratefully acknowledged (see www.share-project.org).
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Cela, E., Ciommi, M. (2018). Ageing in a Multicultural Europe: Perspectives and Challenges. In: Zaidi, A., Harper, S., Howse, K., Lamura, G., Perek-Białas, J. (eds) Building Evidence for Active Ageing Policies. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6017-5_11
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