This chapter brings together two topics of utmost scientific, societal and political
relevance: international migration and population ageing. Recent statistics
underline the importance of these topics in Europe, but also in other parts of
the world. The population of international migrants worldwide has increased by
41.6 per cent from 2005 to 2019 (UN, 2019). In the same period, the population
of persons aged 65 and over also has increased, by 53 per cent (UN, 2019). At
the intersection of these two groups is the population of migrants aged over 65,
which has been increasing throughout Europe (Ciobanu, Fokkema, and Nedelcu,
2017; Warnes et al., 2004).
The objective of this chapter is to discuss in depth the diversity of these three
populations: older persons, migrants and older migrants, and thereby to
acknowledge that societies are growing increasingly diverse and that ageing in
this context poses new challenges (Ciobanu, 2019). These challenges need to be
studied in order to expand the knowledge base in several fields of research, and
inform policies (Ciobanu, Fokkema, and Nedelcu, 2017). The chapter starts by
providing data on older migrants in European countries. The rest of the chapter
is organized in three parts. The first part gives an overview of the literature
and, based on this, discusses different categories of older migrants, and the
internal heterogeneity within each of these groups. The second part focuses on
the implications that this diversity in old age has at different levels, and for the
social support system, and finally, the conclusion briefly proposes some future
lines of research.