Spain

The 1980s and 1990s saw a steadily increase in the number of disabled and retired Norwegians who chose Spain as their country of residence for much of the year. This seasonal removal to another country represents a phenomenon midway between tourism and migration. The dream of settling down in the South is widespread among Norwegians. Almost one in two Norwegians reports entertaining the idea of settling in the Mediterranean region in the winter half-year. Yet few turn this dream into reality. Although it is difficult to quantify the size of the Norwegian population of Spain, as many as 100,000 Norwegians have been estimated to own a house or flat there. However, there is much to suggest that such estimates are greatly overstated. For example, calculations by Prognosesenteret (a market analysis institute) in collaboration with Norges Bank (Norway’s central bank) show that recreational properties owned by Norwegians abroad total just over 40,000. This figure includes the entire world, and recreational property in Sweden can be assumed to account for a large portion along with similar properties in Spain. Based on a level-of-living survey we have conducted among Norwegian retirees in Spain, we have attempted to map this group’s social background and health situation. Overall it appears that affluent retirees make up the bulk of those who opt for retirement in Spain. Compared with retirees living in Norway, Norwegian retirees in Spain are better educated and their household income is higher. Moreover, a greater proportion of Norwegian retirees in Spain own their house as well as a cabin or recreational dwelling. More than half of the retirees own either a dwelling, cabin or recreational property alongside the dwelling in Spain. Almost a quarter own a dwelling both in Norway and Spain as well as a cabin or recreational dwelling in Norway. Norwegian retirees in Spain maintain strong links with Norway. One indicator of this is the high proportion of retirees who own a dwelling or recreational property in Norway. Another is that retirees living in Spain seasonally relocate to Norway. Even among those who have notified the authorities of their move to Spain, the great majority return to Norway during the summer months. There is also much to suggest that Norwegian retirees’ migration is of a non-permanent nature. Most of them will probably move back to Norway when their health fails and they need more care. When asked about their plans for the future, most retirees in our survey report their intention to move back to Norway if they themselves or their partner/spouse find themselves in need of assistance or care. It appears that these intentions are in large measure carried through. We registered few over-80s in our survey, and relatively few deaths are recorded among Norwegians in Spain. In fact the number of recorded deaths has remained fairly stable in a period in which the Norwegian population in Spain has shown steady growth. Generally speaking the retirees in our survey report a fairly good state of health and physical mobility. Compared with a health survey of retirees in Norway, Norwegian retirees in Spain report a somewhat better health situation than elderly households in Norway. This is probably because the most infirm retirees are not the ones who opt to live in Spain. A mobile life in retirement requires not only financial means, but also physical and mental resources. The Spanish elderly care system appears to have little to offer emigrant retirees who fall ill or become infirm. However, based on our study of Norwegian care facilities in Spain, we believe it is possible to glimpse the outline of what we have defined as transnational elderly care: an elderly care system in which both the operation of care institutions and users of the services they offer show a pendulum movement between Norway and Spain. Norwegian nursing and care facilities in Spain can be roughly divided into three categories: 1) institutions built up by Norwegian local municipalities (Bærum and Bergen) with funding provided via the Action Plan for Care of the Elderly; 2) semi-public facilities built up by private initiative but run on subsidies from the Norwegian state; 3) facilities operating entirely on a private and commercial footing. All the above are at the outset residential and care facilities intended for Norwegian retirees in Norway. However, growing interest in these facilities is noted among Norwegian retirees living in Spain. Norwegian elderly care in Spain began to develop in earnest in the runup to the new millennium. Norwegians permanently residing in Spain are the target group of many of the new private facilities. However, private initiatives of this nature require their users to be able and willing to pay what the facilities cost at any time. A possible alternative solution might be one where the users’ home municipality in Norway pays for the assistance received in Spain. However, the challenge faced with this solution would be to attend to Norwegian retirees permanently residing in Spain who in principle lack links with a Norwegian home municipality and lack formal rights to care services in Norway. For the time being the majority appear to opt to return to Norway in late old age rather than spend a life-phase of growing infirmity and care dependence in Spain.

The SOCRES project will investigate the ‘Cantonalist’ revolution, a Spanish socio-republican insurrection which burst out in 1873 in Cartagena, a military harbour in the South East of Spain. Though quite similar to the well-known Paris commune (1871), the Cantonalist insurrection was later totally forgotten, in contrast with its French counterpart. By documenting this experience of a social republicanism built ‘from below’, the SOCRES project hopes to shed new light on the history of political thought. It will also challenge the clichés about the political backwardness of Southern Europe and about the political ‘apathy’ of Spanish society till 1931. In the SOCRES project, a strong attention will be dedicated to the role of exiles, deportees, migrants and seamen in the global diffusion of socio-republican ideas at that time. It will lead to a connected history of 19th-c. Spain, showing that political and cultural movements in the metropolis had both roots and echoes in the colonies (mostly Philippines and Cuba), and in the rest of the world.