Migration of the Elderly: A Study in Social Geography

Preface: The elderly form an increasingly significant section of our society, and changes in the social and economic characteristics of ageing through this century have been mirrored in certain emergent spatial patterns. This study examines these changes in the geography of ageing in England and Wales and what has been perhaps the most significant feature of these changes, the distinctive migration of the elderly, particularly into coastal retirement areas. This study is the consequence of a developing interest in the problems and characteristics of ageing in society, stimulated, not so much by the fact that the writer has, at various times, lived and holidayed in numerous coastal retirement areas, but, in particular, by an undergraduate study of an American retirement community in the state of Oregon during the summer of 1972. While, therefore, this study confines itself to the elderly in England and Wales, it is written in the certain knowledge that many of the issues raised in the discussion may be perceived in other countries of Western Europe and in North America. After a discussion of the theoretical background to the study, Part II (Chapters 3 and 4) concern themselves with the changing spatial patterns of ageing in England and Wales through the greater part of this century and, in particular, the role of migration in contributing to these changing patterns in more recent years. Part III (Chapters 5 to 10) concentrates on examining certain behavioural aspects of migration, based upon survey work among samples of elderly people