7 Health and assistance precarity in later life
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Marion Repetti
Abstract
After affordability, healthcare is most important factor that retirees consider when they think about whether and where to migrate. Often subsumed under the rubric of healthcare is the need for daily assistance that can occur in later life even among people with no immediate need of medical care. As is discussed in this chapter, retirement migrants from the Global North are positioned to benefit from wide access to high-quality healthcare services made more affordable to them than they might otherwise be by global divisions of wealth. This postcolonial relation to care persists even though most of these migrants do not recognise their privileges in this regard. They are more likely to attribute their access to high-quality care to cultural differences, that is, to a respect and love for older people that they believe is intrinsic to the cultures of their host nations. This cheaper and better treatment extends to the potential need for assistance in later life as well. Although health and assistance can be related, they do not need to be, and thus in this chapter, we distinguish between these two dimensions of precarity. Throughout, we also attend to the fact that underlying their concerns for both healthcare and assistance is the reality that these migrants are older people; their age matters.
Abstract
After affordability, healthcare is most important factor that retirees consider when they think about whether and where to migrate. Often subsumed under the rubric of healthcare is the need for daily assistance that can occur in later life even among people with no immediate need of medical care. As is discussed in this chapter, retirement migrants from the Global North are positioned to benefit from wide access to high-quality healthcare services made more affordable to them than they might otherwise be by global divisions of wealth. This postcolonial relation to care persists even though most of these migrants do not recognise their privileges in this regard. They are more likely to attribute their access to high-quality care to cultural differences, that is, to a respect and love for older people that they believe is intrinsic to the cultures of their host nations. This cheaper and better treatment extends to the potential need for assistance in later life as well. Although health and assistance can be related, they do not need to be, and thus in this chapter, we distinguish between these two dimensions of precarity. Throughout, we also attend to the fact that underlying their concerns for both healthcare and assistance is the reality that these migrants are older people; their age matters.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Series editors’ preface iv
- List of tables vi
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
- Retirement migration 13
- Precarity and the welfare state in home and host countries 28
- Escaping economic precarity 46
- Escaping ageism 67
- Relying on global privileges 89
- Health and assistance precarity in later life 104
- Retirement migration, precarity and age 118
- Notes 131
- References 132
- Index 146
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Series editors’ preface iv
- List of tables vi
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
- Retirement migration 13
- Precarity and the welfare state in home and host countries 28
- Escaping economic precarity 46
- Escaping ageism 67
- Relying on global privileges 89
- Health and assistance precarity in later life 104
- Retirement migration, precarity and age 118
- Notes 131
- References 132
- Index 146
