A Life Course Perspective of Work and Well-Being Among Immigrants in Europe

As the share of Europe’s elderly—already one-fifth of the population—continues to increase, international migration is often invoked as a way to offset population decline due to aging. However, increasing proportions of immigrants across Europe are now themselves middle- and older-aged, posing questions about healthy aging for this population. Although immigrants tend to have favorable health upon their arrival in destination countries, with health profiles similar to or better than the most health-advantaged native-born groups, their health deteriorate with time. Indeed, for some outcomes, this “immigrant health advantage” reverses in older age, such that immigrants exhibit worse health than native-born groups in this advanced life course stage.

Work, a central social institution in modern life and a core motivation for economic migration, represents a critical context for understanding immigrants’ health in midlife and older age. In addition to financial benefits, work also confers physical and psychosocial advantages and disadvantages that can affect one’s health. Moreover, for immigrants, work carries symbolic significance because it represents a form of integration in the host country. Yet, despite a large literature linking work to health outcomes, work has been underexplored as a socio-structural determinant of health for immigrants.

Integrating life course theory with theories of immigrant integration, this study centers work as a critical well-being context for understanding the health of midlife and older-aged immigrants in Europe by providing a cross-national perspective of immigrants’ job strain in 28 European countries. Using job histories from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe, , examining 1) associations between nativity and physical and psychosocial job strain over the life course and 2) variation in these associations by gender, country of origin, migration characteristics, and national-level immigrant integration policies. Results will advance knowledge about work as a socio-structural determinant of (un)healthy aging among immigrants.