The Retirement of the Migrant Labor Force: Pension Portability and Beyond

The specificities of the workforce with a migrant background are often neglected in studies of
retirement. Similarly, many studies of migration’s impact on pensions often focus on
aggregate outcomes – system sustainability or distributive characteristics. The present paper
provides a fresh look at the nexus between these two literatures. It discusses the impact of the
European social security coordination mechanisms on individual decision‐making and on the
functioning of social security systems – with a focus on retirement. The paper argues that
such effects are non‐negligible and are likely to have major policy consequences.