ABSTRACT
Using qualitative data with older (50+) EU-migrants and NGO representatives, this study investigates the drivers of old-age poverty and retirement insecurity for low-income EU-migrants. Our findings indicate that the nature of work that many are/were engaged in and education, along with timing and age of arrival to the UK, influenced poverty risk, placing older and more recent migrants at a disadvantage. These risks were exacerbated by poor awareness of the legal rules and procedures surrounding social-security coordination and pensions portability following the UK-EU Withdrawal and UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreements. Our research found that living with family members could provide reciprocal advantages such as intergenerational support and facilitate dual-earning households, although such arrangements could also be precarious for older EU-migrants due to labour market and financial instabilities of family members. Pensions and retirement insecurities were further compounded by immigration and welfare bureaucracies; the complexity of pensions coordination and a lack of accessible information about pensions portability and support.