What Comes After Retirement Migration? Patterns of Death and Return from Spain

This chapter examines the underlying variables and reasons why European retirement migration comes to an end by analyzing statistics on return migrations and mortality rates for retired migrants in Spain. The analysis is based on two datasets published by the Spanish National Statistics Institute: Death Statistics and Residential Variation Statistics. In the latter case, the data permits an examination of the reasons for leaving Spain or residency deregistration (return, re-emigration and unknown destination). The analysis focuses on movements and mortality rates for the five European nationalities residing in Spain that have the highest average age (Swiss, British, Norwegian, Finnish and Belgian) plus German nationals because of their large presence in the country. The analysis finds that for nationals from Finland, Norway and Switzerland return migration appears to be an important option, while those from the United Kingdom and Belgium appear to extend their stay and are more likely to die in place, in other words, they have higher death rates.