EU Older Migrants: Pilot Project Stakeholder Report

Older migrants from the European Union (EU) living in the United Kingdom (UK) face various pre-existing and new challenges after Brexit. Their particular circumstances were brought to the attention of the research team in the previous Migrant Workers’ Mapping (MWM) Project (Greenfields, Smith and Dagilyte., 2019) that investigated the size, mobility drivers, and impact on the local community and service demand of a large East European migrant workforce population resident within Fenland, Cambridgeshire. The findings showed increasing numbers of older workers (around 20% aged 51+) and specifically older female workers (around 18.5%) arriving to the UK before the Brexit date (31st January 2020). Most of these older workers intended to settle in the UK permanently. The current pilot research builds on these findings with consideration of the context for EU older migrants living in the UK after Brexit. The research focused specifically on EU older migrants (aged 50+) and explored how the post-Brexit, post-pandemic world has impacted their social integration, access to services, retirement plans, settled status, and the associated challenges for rela tives seeking to join family already in the UK. It was supported by funding from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and took place between February 2022 and April 2023 across two research locations: Fenland in Cambridgeshire and Medway in Kent.