Title  To leave or to stay? Transition to retirement and return migration of Portuguese couples in Switzerland
Author  Liliana Marisa Vieira da Silva Azevedo
Supervisors  Rui Pena Pires e Karin Wall
Year  2023
Institution  Iscte-University Institute of Lisbon
Degree  PhD
Area  Sociology
Keywords  Return migration, transnational mobility, retirement, gender, Switzerland, Portugal
URI  http://hdl.handle.net/10071/29086

Abstract

Portuguese migration to Switzerland has been a remarkable phenomenon in the last forty years, both for the volume of the flows and for their intensity in certain periods. This study focuses on the transition to retirement of Portuguese couples who migrated to that country. It seeks to understand what happens at the end of working life, when the main reason for migration – work – no longer exists. The collected data points to an acceleration, in the last decade, of the out-migration from Switzerland of Portuguese nationals aged over 60 and suggests that, at retirement, most decide to return. With the sociology of migration and return studies as a back-drop, the research combines the perspectives of transnationalism, mobility, life course and gender, and articulates them with a spatial-temporal dimension, which is particularly relevant in the analysis of migratory dynamics over decades. It draws on fieldwork conducted between 2018 and 2022, which included biographical interviews, a multi-sited ethnography, statistical analysis and historical research. The thesis highlights the plurality of retirement profiles and provides a diachronic account of the changes in migratory projects. Considering couples' aspirations and abilities to leave or stay in Switzerland upon retirement, it identifies two types of return (assertive and adaptive ambivalent) and two types of stay (assertive and passive ambivalent). I also discuss the reasons for returning and not returning, the tensions and negotiations in the couples' decision-making process, and transnational mobility following retirement.