The Retired Migrant: A Study in North Wales

This study seeks to identify the distinctive social, economic and demographic characteristics of retired migrants in a study area on the North Wales Coast and thus contributes to the surprisingly limited research literature on retirement migration in Britain. A hypothesis testing framework is adopted and an important feature of the study is the extensive use of control by disaggregation to disentangle the compounding effects of different characteristics. Although the study confirms that the retired migrant is typically an owner occupier of a bungalow and comparatively isolated geographically from his children, the results generally provide little unequivocal support for previous research findings.