Today Leyden Academy hosted the IMISCOE conference, with the aim to bridge state-of-the-art research and practice on the care for and social well-being of older migrants.
The morning session focused on the complex interconnections of different forms of care provided by various individuals and organisations in local places (the private home, the neighbourhood, care institutions). Long-term care is increasingly decentralised to the local level, boosting new combinations of informal family care, professional care and volunteer work. On the basis of recent research from the Netherlands and Switzerland, the session explored the implications of this development for older migrants, providers of mainstream and specialised care services, and policymakers.
The afternoon session focused on different aspects of older migrants’ social well-being in the Netherlands. Although it is often referred to, the social domain of well-being remains secondary to issues of health and provision and quality of care for older migrants. This session explored which aspects of well-being are common to current research, debates and practices. and which aspects older migrants themselves acknowledge as important. The three key social themes of well-being were: loneliness, social participation and transnational living.
This conference was organised by Roos Pijpers (Radboud University Nijmegen), Eva Soom Ammann (Bern University of Applied Sciences), Tineke Fokkema (Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute/Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Nina Conkova (Leyden Academy on Vitality and Ageing)