In the Netherlands, about 4.3 million inhabitants have a migration background, which is projected to increase to 5.3 by 2030. Their labour market position has often been studied, but usually the focus was on younger migrants. Also, studies on older workers and retirement generally (implicitly) focus on those who work and live in the country in which they were born. Therefore, this project studies the labour market position of older migrant workers and the implications for their retirement situation.
In 2021, Jelle Lössbroek won the Instituut Gak-KNAW award, providing a 3-year postdoctoral position to study this project. This will combine insights from the two fields of study, on older workers and on migrants. For example, migrant scholars indicate that the human capital of migrant workers increases the longer they are in their host country, whereas studies on older workers have argued that the human capital of older workers may become outdated. Or: older workers increasingly face discrimination based on their age as they grow older; police studies suggest that discrimination based on ethnicity is weaker for older than younger people. How does discrimination, then, influence the position of older migrant workers?
This project is funded by the Instituut Gak-KNAW Award (2021).
