Place and residence attachments in Canada’s older population

The main objective of this edited volume is to explore the motivations, decision making processes, and consequences, when older people consider or accomplish return migration to their place of origin; and also to raise the public policy profile of this increasingly important subject. The book examines in detail a range of themes affecting return migrations, including: family ties, obligations and their emotive strengths; comparative quality, and cost, of health and welfare provision in host and home countries; older age transitions and cultural affinity with homeland; and psychological adjustment, belonging and attachment to place. The wide ranging collection covers refugee, political, heritage, life-style, or family-oriented return. There is varying emphasis on permanent return, non-permanent returns, and visits to place of origin, which reflects variety in strategic approaches to return migrations and mobilities in later life. The book is unique in bringing this breadth and depth of exploration to bear on older people’s return movements, providing a focused synthesis that allows a neglected subject to receive due attention in an era of ageing and more mobile societies. Chapters reflect a variety of quantitative, qualitative and ethnographic methods of enquiry, by researchers from different disciplines, including social gerontology, anthropology, migration and human geography perspectives. The book will be of use and interest to public service providers, government departments, agencies working with and for older people, policy developers, research bodies, and commercial organizations with interest and experience in travel and tourism. The main objective of this edited volume is to explore the motivations, decision making processes, and consequences, when older people consider or accomplish return migration to their place of origin; and also to raise the public policy profile of this increasingly important subject. The book examines in detail a range of themes affecting return migrations, including: family ties, obligations and their emotive strengths; comparative quality, and cost, of health and welfare provision in host and home countries; older age transitions and cultural affinity with homeland; and psychological adjustment, belonging and attachment to place. The main objective of this edited volume is to explore the motivations, decision making processes, and consequences, when older people consider or accomplish return migration to their place of origin; and also to raise the public policy profile of this increasingly important subject. This original empirical chapter reports on an instructive analysis of authoritative Canadian national data, to explore place ties and other location attachments accumulated over a lifespan, such as school, workplace or favoured vacation destination. The chapter analyses ‘fixed interval’ return (migrations returning an individual to the region of residence five years prior to census day) and onward (migrations to a subsequent destination) migration among Canada’s older population. The chapter examines the incidence, composition, spatial patterning, and correlates of these migrations. Analysis reveals a migration system that is largely complementary to that observed within the broader population, although onward migration is relatively unimportant for this group, and the motivations and characteristics vary by age group amongst older migrants. The chapter also raises methodological issues, including sampling and ability to generalize results.