As the global older population continues to expand, new issues and concerns arise for consideration by academics, policy makers and practitioners worldwide. Ageing in a Global Context is a series of books, published by Policy Press in association with the British Society of Gerontology, which aims to influence and transform debates in what has become a fast-moving field in research and policy. The series seeks to achieve this in three main ways. First, the series publishes books that rethink key questions shaping debates in the study of ageing. This has become especially important given the restructuring of welfare states, alongside the complex nature of population change, with both of these elements opening up the need to explore themes that go beyond traditional perspectives in social gerontology. Second, the series represents a response to the impact of globalisation and related processes that are contributing to the erosion of the national boundaries that originally framed the study of ageing. From this has come the emergence of issues explored in various contributions to the series, for example: the impact of cultural diversity; changing patterns of working life; new forms of inequality; the role of ethnicity in later life; and related concerns. Third, a key concern of the series is to explore interdisciplinary connections in gerontology. Contributions to the series provide a critical assessment of the disciplinary boundaries and territories influencing later life, creating, in the process, new perspectives and approaches relevant to the 21st century.

Given the context described, Retirement Migration and Precarity in Later Life corresponds closely to the aims of the Ageing in a Global Context series. The issue of retirement migration has been a significant theme in research on ageing since at least the 1990s. Much of this work has tended towards presenting older migrants as an economically secure group seeking a leisure-based lifestyle as they transition from work to retirement. However, the authors provide a convincing challenge to this view, demonstrating the extent to which international migration among older people may be linked to the need to escape poverty and insecurity in their home country. Drawing upon fascinating interview material with retirees from the UK, the US and Switzerland, the book explores migration in the context of the ways in which precarity linked with ageism shapes the lives of older people.