Social Exclusion of Older Immigrants, and Its Consequences: A Study on Share Data

The elderly population in Europe is rapidly increasing (EUROSTAT, 2017). This increase is even more important when focussing on older immigrants. Between 2010 and 2015, non-native people over 55 years of age increased by 50% in countries like Finland, Portugal and Luxemburg. A strong increase is also recorded among future elderly in this category (45-54 years old) (Ciabanu et al., 2017). Against this background, issues concerning older immigrants’ social inclusion are becoming more and more actually.

Social Capital’s (SC) approach is widely used in social inclusion studies of the elderly (Litwin, 2009; Tomini et al., 2016; Craveiro, 2017). The situation is not the same for the literature on non-native seniors and future seniors. The aim of this study is to fill this gap, and shows what kind of SC (bonding or bridging) allows the elderly or aging immigrant population to have the best outcomes in terms of health and well-being. Here we refer to a micro-level approach of SC, following the definition of Van der Gaag and Snijder (2004). With the aim of isolating the effect given by the place of birth, a comparison with the native populations will be performed.

To carry out this research I used the Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe dataset (wave 4 and 6), and I created a measure of individual social capital, which covers many of the dimensions identified as salient ones in the literature; and through a systematic study of the European context. In order to check the macro aspect of data, I consider using regression models that take differences within and between groups into account. The macro variable is represented by Welfare regime (Esping-Andersen,1990; Ferrera, 1996).