People who move abroad after retirement are more likely to feel lonely because they do not have community support in their new home, a study warned today.
Many seniors dream of retiring in a warmer, cheaper country – but researchers said loneliness can be a 'black place in paradise' for the elderly.
Pensioners who move abroad can run a greater risk of loneliness than those who stay in their home country, according to a study in the magazine Psychology and Aging.
Main author Esma Betül Savaş, of the Dutch Interdisciplinary Demography Institute, said: 'International pension migration is increasingly popular in Europe and the other side of the world.
'On social media you see all the people in Europe sunbathing in Spain, American pensioners move to Mexico and Japanese pensioners to Malaysia.
“Although these pension migrants are generally happy, they can still be confronted with struggles that adapt to a new country.”
She said that these struggles can hold less contact with family and old friends – including adult children – and difficulty forming new friendships and connections in their new countries.
To better understand the experiences of pension migrants, promoted PhD researcher Mrs Savaş and her colleagues 4,995 Dutch pensioners who live abroad and a comparison group of 1,338 Dutch pensioners who still live in the Netherlands.
An older couple drives a mobility scooter on Levante Beach in Benidorm, Spain (file image)
To be eligible as a pension migrant, those who live abroad were older than 65 and moved to their new country after being 50.
The research team asked the participants about their feelings of loneliness, as well as their connections with family, friends and neighbors at home and in their new countries.
The researchers looked at two aspects of loneliness: emotional loneliness, which comes from the lack of good friends or a partner, and social loneliness, which comes from a lack of a broader social circle or a sense of community.
The findings generally showed that pension migrants were 'social Lonelier' than those who stay at home, even though they are on average better and healthier than non-migrant pensioners in the control group.
But the pension migrants were on average not emotionally lonely than non-migrants.
Main author Esma Betül Savaş, from the Dutch Interdisciplinary Demographics Institute, said that 'pension migrants' May 'feat feate feate to adapt to a new country'
The researchers said that is logical, because many pensioners move to a new country with a spouse or partner.
Only pension migrants who reported that they had lost contact with good friends and family from home were both social and emotionally lonely.
The research team also discovered that those who had more contact with neighbors and a higher feeling belong to their new country reported less social loneliness.
Mrs. Savaş said that the study emphasizes the need for pensioners to consider their social support systems if they are thinking about retiring abroad.
She added: 'Older adults can be confronted with double danger in retirement in a new country because they are vulnerable to both age -related and migration -related risk factors for loneliness, and loneliness is a risk factor for negative health results.
“It is important for people who are considering pension migration to think about how they can preserve their social ties in their country of origin and make new people in their country of destination.”
