The International Retirement Migration (IRM): Between Start-Up and Consolidation of a Global Phenomenon. The Case Study of Europe and Italy

Abstract

Since the 1980s, in Europe and in some areas of the world there have been some migratory flows from the global North, also known as International Retirement Migrations (IRM), which involve different actors, mainly pre-retirees/retirees whose profile, both in terms of cultural background and social and economic status, is totally different from that of migrants from the South, as well as the motivations that dwell mainly in the search for a better quality territory especially in the environmental dimension. The territorial effects of these actions are reflected both in population dynamics because they go to repopulate territories characterized by demographic poverty and in the cultural and social dimension in that local territorial development actions can be generated, recovering rural, mountainous and hilly towns at risk of abandonment. These are the reasons for analysing the phenomenon on a European and national scale, with the ultimate goal of understanding how much, where and why IRM has developed and what level of consolidation has been achieved.