Retiring abroad? Study reveals hidden loneliness risk

AMSTERDAM - Many European people dream of retiring abroad to a better climate and beautiful landscapes, but a new study warns that the dream can turn sour, with loneliness being a major risk, reported German news agency dpa.

Researchers at the University of Groningen surveyed retired emigrants and a control group of retired people in the Netherlands. They found that the emigrants felt lonelier in their social environment.

Since old age is also a risk factor for loneliness and this can have negative consequences for health, retired migrants may be doubly at risk, said Esma Betül Savaş, lead author of the study published on Saturday in the journal Psychology and Aging.

She recommended that people planning to emigrate on retirement should consider how they can maintain their social ties at home and gain new ones abroad.

Germany's pensioners are particularly keen to settle abroad, with the country's pension insurance organisation reporting that 237,000 pensioners were receiving their payments abroad at the end of 2023.

The most popular countries for retirement were Austria, Switzerland, Spain, the United States and France.

Savaş and her team surveyed almost 5,000 emigrated pensioners and almost 1,400 pensioners who stayed at home, asking them, among other things, whether they felt lonely and what their relationships with family, friends, and neighbours were like.

The researchers distinguished between emotional loneliness, caused by a lack of close friends or a life partner, and social loneliness, caused by a lack of a social environment or sense of community.

The fact that pensioners abroad miss the latter is because they usually emigrated together with a spouse or partner. However, the study also showed that retired migrants felt socially and emotionally lonely when they lost contact with good friends and family at home. - BERNAMA-dpa