RETIREWEL: Retirement across countries: A tripartite analysis of the welfare state, family care networks, and the retirement industry

Among 10 other UU researchers, Dora Sampaio was recently awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council.

This grant allows me to investigate two major and intersecting global trends: transnational mobilities and population ageing.

More and more people spend their retirement years across more than one country. This is for various reasons. They have a partner from a different country, they want to be close to family members abroad, they may have worked part of their lives in a foreign country, they are searching for more affordable healthcare, better climate amenities, and/or they wish to maximise their lifetime savings.

These complex mobilities create new challenges for national welfare regimes and families and produce new retirement markets. Still, we lack a clear understanding of the interaction between these different stakeholders in preparation for and during retirement. In the project RETIREWEL, Dora Sampaio addresses this puzzle through a novel, in-depth comparative study of transnational. She focuses on retirees and soon-to-be retirees, and examines these complex intersections in three migration corridors: Portugal-Brazil, Netherlands-Turkey, and UK-India. The project will function as a new knowledge base to understand the present and future of retirement and its implications for individuals and their families, institutions, and localities across countries.