The number of elderly people with a refugee or migrant background is rising across Europe, posing new challenges in health and care sectors. In Denmark, elders with a refugee background comprise an especially vulnerable group, often living in poverty and alone. This vulnerability can be exacerbated by social marginalisation and health problems, and the poverty is expected to worsen due to new Danish rules around accessing public pensions.

A new article in the Danish magazine Gerontologi presents the findings from researchers Anika Liversage (VIVE) and Mikkel Rytter (University of Aarhus), comparing available data on elderly people with an ethnic minority background to elderly with Danish background. The data used are from 2018.

The study compares residents aged 65-74, in five groups:

• Ethnic minority elderly from Turkey, mostly arriving to Denmark between 1968 to 1973 as work migrants with a low level of education;
• Ethnic minority elderly from Pakistan, arriving more or less in the same period but with a higher level of education than the Turkish people;
• Ethnic minority elderly from Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, usually arriving after 1980 as refugees and with varying levels of education;
• All ethnic Danes of the same age;
• Ethnic Danes of the same age, but with a maximum of 7 years of education (in general, the education level in Denmark is higher than in the home countries of the three foreign groups).

The “new” elders

The analysis examines how many years individuals have stayed in Denmark, whether they were working as 55-year olds, and whether they are living below the poverty limit. It also describes their type of accommodation, and how many are living with adult children.

In total, five percent of the 70-year olds and ten percent of the 60-year olds living in Denmark were born outside Denmark. This is a situation Denmark does not have much experience with, as the first large groups of migrants from countries outside Europe arrived in the late 1960s, and so these form the first group of retired people with a foreign background. Many people in these groups have never learnt the Danish language and are isolated from Danish society, unlike those who arrived more recently and for whom integration efforts have been more successful.

There are large differences between the minority groups in the study when it comes to length of time spent in Denmark, reasons for coming, education levels, whether they came as a family or reunited later and their family patterns. There are also significant differences between men and women.

Length of stay

Those within the refugee group had generally been in Denmark for a shorter time before reaching the age of retirement, with many arriving in their forties. By contrast, migrant groups typically arrived in their twenties. This increased their chances of learning the Danish language, establishing a business and gaining work experience.

Employment

The study finds that almost all Danish men (87%) were working at the age of 55, whereas only half of the two migrant groups were providing for themselves at this age. This said, more Pakistanis were found to be self-employed than Danes. Fewer than a quarter of the individuals within the refugee group were self-supporting: the majority were depending on benefits or disability pension. For the women, the difference is even more significant: 62% of the Danish women with only 7 years of education had a job, while this figure stood at just 8% among women in the refugee group.

Poverty

The percentage of elders with minority background ending up in poverty is far higher than for ethnic Danes (only 1% of Danish men had an income below the poverty line but 17% of the men in the refugee group). Poverty is also much more common for minority women than for men – affecting 26% of Turkish women but only 10% of Turkish men. The gender difference might be explained by the fact that women live longer (often surviving their husband who was the provider), they have a weaker attachment to the labour market, and on average they arrived later than their husbands in Denmark. There is no difference between elderly Danish men and women when it comes to the rate of poverty.

A full retirement pension keeps people above the poverty limit, but refugees and migrants are often not living up to the criteria of 40 years on the Danish labour market and will only be given a percentage of the full pension, calculated individually. Refugees and migrants also tend to be employed in low-income jobs and are rarely able to build up private pensions on the side. Until January 2021 refugees were exempt from the criteria of 40 years of work experience, in respect of the circumstances often forcing them to leave their country at an adult age, but this was abolished among other restrictions on refugee rights lately.

Family patterns

When it comes to family patterns, very few ethnic Danes are living in extended families (3%), and elderly people will move to a care home if he/she is no longer able to take care of themselves. The study shows large differences between Danes and ethnic minorities regarding family patterns, as extended families are common (for Pakistanis 40%) and family members will often be the main care providers for the elderly. But again, the economy is also a serious difference, as many elders with minority background cannot afford moving to a care home on their limited pension and do not have a house to sell.

Accommodation

The final comparison of the study, and an extra reason for the high poverty level among elders with minority background, is the type of accommodation they live in – owning your own home is the main factor when it comes to economic inequality in Denmark in general. The majority of the ethnic Danes in the study owns their own house, and the majority from the refugee and migrant groups are renting flats in social housing projects. The difference is also reflected in square metres per person: a person in the main Danish group has on average 75 m2 at his/her disposal, and a person from the Pakistani group only 41 m2.

Health and trauma

The fact that refugees often suffer from trauma while other migrants generally do not is not mentioned specifically in the study, but should also be considered when it comes to economy, labour market attachment and health issues. The study also did not examine health issues in depth, but refers to other studies which find that ethnic minority groups are more likely to suffer from fragile health than the majority population.

Conclusion

The study concludes that elderly people from minority and refugee backgrounds are facing several serious disadvantages in comparison with elderly Danish natives, especially refugees and especially women. It is likely that this gap will increase further in the near future, once new legislation has had time to made an impact.

The authors of the report can be contacted for further information:

Mikkel Rytter: mikkel.rytter@cas.au.dk
Anika Liversage: ani@vive.dk