Migration and ageing: settlement experiences and emerging care needs of older refugees in developed countries

Migration is a phenomenon usually associated with younger people, so issues of older migrants attract less attention in research, policy making and welfare service provision. On the whole, older refugees are frequently put ‘at the back of the queue’ and overlooked by aid programmes due to assumptions that their needs are of less importance than those of other vulnerable forced migrant groups such as children. Nonetheless, older people who experience forced migration and exile are faced with serious difficulties such as traumatic experiences in origin country and during flight, health deterioration due to migration stresses, severed family and friends’ networks, limited choices of resettlement due to financial difficulties and lack of support. In addition, there is a disparity between service providers’ perceptions of user needs and older refugees’ own priorities. To date, there has been little research on their experiences in receiving countries despite the fact that evidence on settled older migrants depicts them as among the most deprived and socially excluded groups living in developed countries. In this article older refugees' health and social care needs and their implications for policy makers are reviewed.