Tony Warnes

A place in the sun: international retirement migration from northern to southern Europe.

International retirement migration (IRM) is a significant feature of the changing map of Europe. It has important implications in terms of the redistribution of both health care and social costs, and incomes and wealth. This article considers four aspects of IRM. The first considers the limited literature on this under-researched topic and identifies the distinctiveness of both its international and European features. The second reviews the existing statistical data for north-south IRM in Europe, particularly from the UK to Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain; it establishes both the scale and the geography of these migrations. In the third section we investigate some of the major influences on both the volume and the spatial pattern of IRM. Finally, in the fourth section, a brief review is presented of the economic, social and cultural implications of IRM for both the emigrants and their host communities.

Increasing gerontological communication

I am pleased to report new appointments to the editorial team and plans for expansion of the journal. Last summer Miles Lambert succeeded Jean Wilkinson as the Editorial Assistant, and to the great credit of them both, the transition caused practically no delay in the handling of the submitted papers. Then in November 2006, Mima Cattan of Leeds Metropolitan University was appointed as the journals first Associate Editor. Mimas academic roots are in medical sociology and anthropology. I find her magnificently thoughtful and constructive, not only about the practicalities and responsibilities of an editors trade, as with concern for the novice author when they receive an unfavourable decision letter, but also about broad epistemological issues in the production and communication of gerontological understanding. Mimas presence will be creative, stimulating and welcome support. Her appointment is to enable more papers to be published, to which I now turn.

Editorial: Ageing & Society in its majority

Past twenty-one years of age, a striking new cover and a new editor: is Ageing & Society about to be radically transformed? Not at all, but over the next five years it will aim to be even better at the things it has been doing well. To stretch the life course analogy, having reached a ‘mature age’ and with an accomplished juvenilia, the paths that promise most are well defined. The achievement to date has been impressive, and the strong foundation creates a larger potential. It is in this context and spirit that I take up the editorship in succession to Bill Bytheway. The editorial policy will of course be frequently re-examined and refined, but neither the editorial board nor I wish to see the journals core ambitions and values change. My aims are to help authors achieve these to an even higher standard, and particularly to raise the titles reputation for originality, for the quality of the research that it reports, and for its standards of communication. The goal is to raise the ‘impact’ of Ageing & Society, in citation indicators and, more importantly, in its contributions to understanding and to the formation of opinion and policy.