University of Mannheim: International joint project receives funding from the Volkswagen Foundation

What does it mean for different groups of European migrants to age happily and healthily? This is the question Prof. Dr. Katja Möhring, junior professor for sociology of the welfare state at the University of Mannheim, in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Ahmet Icduygu (Koç University, Turkey), Prof. Francesca Lagomarsino (Università degli Studi di Genova, Italy) and Prof. Dr. Basak Bilecen (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Netherlands). The Volkswagen Foundation is now funding this four-year research project with around 1.2 million euros. The Mannheim professor, who is in charge of the project, accounts for almost 350,000 euros.

In their international study, the researchers want to use quantitative methods to determine, for example, which factors influence the quality of aging among migrants in Europe and whether differences can be found between different groups of people. In the qualitative part of the study, they will conduct so-called walking interviews with two different groups of migrants. During these interviews, the researchers go for a walk with their interviewees and talk about how they perceive their retirement and what influence their neighborhood and environment has on it. They focus both on older migrant workers, who migrated from Turkey and Italy to Germany or the Netherlands and are now retired, as well as German and Dutch migrants who migrated to Italy or Turkey only after retirement. The researchers would like to conduct some interviews in the Mannheim and Ludwigshafen region, since a particularly large number of older people of Turkish and Italian origin live here. “By combining quantitative and qualitative methods and by surveying these two opposing groups, we want to gain a holistic picture of the well-being of older European migrants,” explains Möhring. The researchers would like to conduct some interviews in the Mannheim and Ludwigshafen region, since a particularly large number of older people of Turkish and Italian origin live here. “By combining quantitative and qualitative methods and by surveying these two opposing groups, we want to gain a holistic picture of the well-being of older European migrants,” explains Möhring. The researchers would like to conduct some interviews in the Mannheim and Ludwigshafen region, since a particularly large number of older people of Turkish and Italian origin live here. “By combining quantitative and qualitative methods and by surveying these two opposing groups, we want to gain a holistic picture of the well-being of older European migrants,” explains Möhring.

The aim of the study is to develop concrete offers for older migrants. This can, for example, be a course or workshop that shows them ways to improve their health and well-being. “Our project has a very practical result that is also very innovative. We hope to be able to improve the everyday life of the pensioners a little bit,” says the project manager.

With its funding initiative “Challenges and Potentials for Europe”, the Volkswagen Foundation supports international research projects dealing with the topic “Europe: The Aging Continent” in the current call for proposals. The offer is aimed at researchers from the social sciences, cultural studies and humanities who work together with researchers from at least two other European countries. In the coming year, Möhring will move to the Otto Friedrich University of Bamberg and carry out the research project there. The University of Mannheim remains the cooperation partner of the project.