In Search of a Good Life in and out of Switzerland: Making Use of Migration in Old Age

Many Swiss households, dealing with care needs facing themselves in old age or older relatives, hire female migrant live-in care workers from Eastern European countries. At the same time, Swiss people are migrating to Southern European countries after their retirement, as a means of improving their socioeconomic security. Similar practices have been discussed in the Swiss and international literature. Some researchers have documented the global care market, its gendered dimension, and the precarious conditions in which these migrants — mainly women — work in the richer country. Literature about retirement migration sometimes indicates that such movement is motivated by the search for a better lifestyle or more economic security, something that reflects the economic privileges of the retirees from richer countries vis-à-vis populations of countries with cheaper costs of living. This chapter demonstrates how these two practices (relocating and hiring a migrant) are linked to a specific configuration of the welfare and care regime in Switzerland: one in which people’s well-being in old age mostly depends on their private resources, such as household income and social networks, and where public transfers are secondary. It also discusses how the use of migration in later life is shaped by global inequalities between countries and is stimulated by an expanding transnational market for care, housing and leisure services targeting ageing customers from richer countries.