‘You would never pick up the thread from where you left off’: Older Irish women migrants' narratives of non‐return, post‐retirement

Abstract

There is growing interest in the extent of post‐retirement return among migrants. However, most research focuses on those approaching or soon after retirement, e.g. in their 60s. Less is known about how return, and indeed non‐return, decision‐making evolves in later years, with calls for more research on migrants in the old‐old age groups. Moreover, there are indications that women migrants may be less inclined to return than their male counterparts. Our article seeks to advance understanding in this area of research by drawing upon rich qualitative data from Irish women migrants, who worked as nurses in Britain and are now entering older age, e.g. 70s–80s. Many simply asserted that they could not leave their adult children and grandchildren. However, using the embedding framework, through a life course lens, we argue that non‐return may reflect complex processes of disembedding and non‐belonging in the origin country – which are less easy to articulate.