Migrants Coping With Legality: The views and experiences of older Peruvians and Moroccans

Abstract

Migrants’ and their family members’ living conditions in origin and destination countries have come to depend very much on how they cope with the laws and legal systems that affect them. Attached to the importance of acquiring a legal status, there are specific areas of juridical and administrative regulation that are of enormous interest for older people living in a family context of migration, such as pensions and the capacity to move to be closer to loved ones. Based on qualitative research with people aged 50 and over in Spain, Peru and Morocco, the article explores older individuals´responses to the legal frameworks, and, especially, inquires on the practices that help them benefit from or overcome the laws. It reveals that, as a result of states’ unclear legal actions, together with the desire to overcome barriers in these specific areas, interviewees are forced to act against or at least partially behind the law.