How do migrants prepare for and cope with their retirement? A qualitative study in The Netherlands

The number of retired migrants in Europe is rising, and many migrants face a pension gap. Previous research, largely based on census and register data, attributes these pension gaps to employment histories and eligibility policies while overlooking less visible influences such as habits, norms, and social relations – here termed sociocultural factors. This study addresses how such factors shape migrants’ retirement preparations and their coping strategies in response to a pension gap. Our focus is on the Netherlands, where pension poverty affects 40% of non-Western migrants compared to 3% of non-migrants. We conducted 24 semi-structured interviews with retirees from Suriname, Turkey, and Morocco. We found that sociocultural factors influence pension preparation in several ways. Awareness of pension rights was low, and distrust in formal institutions, rooted in negative experiences with the welfare system, limited the use of pension facilities. Individual retirement savings were often deprioritized due to misconceptions about pensions and financial support for family members. However, during retirement, these same sociocultural factors became vital mechanisms for coping with their financially vulnerable position: social networks, resilience, and transnational comparisons provided strategies to ‘deal with their deprivation’. Overall, sociocultural factors both constrain and enable migrants’ financial well-being in retirement in the Netherlands.