Poverty risk among older immigrants in a scandinavian welfare state

Abstract

The focus of this paper is on poverty among immigrants and refugees aged 60 years and older coming to Denmark from countries outside of the OECD, with an emphasis on immigrants who came as guest workers before 1974, as refugees and as family members and marriage partners (tied movers) of the individuals coming as guest workers and as refugees. A large proportion of people in this group were fairly young at the time of their arrival in Denmark. Guest workers who came before 1974 and refugees and tied movers who arrived in the 1970s and 1980s are now either close to or above the age of 60, with conditional eligibility to a labour market-related early retirement programme or to the State pension. Poverty rates by national background are described using alternative household concepts. A number of background factors with relevance for poverty are summarised. We focus on age, gender, marital status, occupational status at age 55, and duration of residence, and find major differences between migrant groups and between immigrants and natives regarding how income is dependent at different ages on market income, pensions and benefits. We also present a number of regressions aiming at explaining differences in the risk of poverty risk in terms of these background factors.