Back Issues 11-20

EXPLORING RETIREMENT MIGRATION WILLINGNESS
AMONG PRERETIREES IN TAIWAN

Yu-Ling Chen
Ph.D. Student, Ph.D. Program for Civil Engineering, Water Resources Engineering, and Infrastructure Planning, Feng Chia University, Taiwan
(e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Mei-Jung Lai
Professor, Department of Urban Planning and Spatial Information, Feng Chia Univer-sity, Taiwan (e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Abstract

Under the influence of an aging society and a declining birth rate, the global demo-graphic structure has changed rapidly. Because of the changing population structure and the willingness of the elderly to migrate for retirement, the present study used preretirees (aged 50–64 years) in Taiwan as participants and explored their willingness to retire-ment migration (R.M. in brief) and relevant variables. The research tools included a cloud-based closed-end questionnaire. We collected 962 valid responses analyzed by SPSS version 23. The analysis results revealed that 30% of the participants were in fa-vor of R.M.. Among the respondents, those with the following characteristics were more likely to be willing to migrate for retirement: men, no offspring, traveling fre-quently, and living with friends after retirement. By contrast, participants with older age; longer duration living in their current residence; and living with their spouse, or off-spring after retirement were less likely to be willing to migrate. In urban areas, people who depended on monthly pension after retirement had lower migration willingness, whereas those whose main economic source was work income tended to have higher migration willingness. The willingness to retirement migration was also related to the suitability for retirement life in origin (current residence), that is, whether it is favorable for them to age in place. The obtained results reached significant differences in willing-ness for six factors: daily living, housing, environment, community participation, life pace, and society. This study confirmed that the respondents’ demographics and the at-tributes of their current residential environment generated different forces affecting re-tirees’ willingness to migrate. The study also identified R.M. as an alternative plan to aging in place. The government must emphasize the importance of R.M. and consider incorporating it into social welfare policies.

Keywords: retirement migration, aging in place, return retirement migration, prere-tiree, suitability for retirement life

Attachments:

0940 Final.pdf

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185 kB