Ageing and immigration in the Greek capital. Policy issues and developments since the early 1990s

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Date
2013-06
Authors
Maloutas, Thomas
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Publisher
Flinders University Department of Language Studies - Modern Greek
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All rights reserved. Subject to the copyright act of 1968, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying or recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
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Flinders University Department of Language Studies - Adelaide 2013
Abstract
The paper deals with socio-demographic change and spatial transformation in Athens during the post war period and, in particular, since the early 1990s. It focuses on the interaction of two parallel processes — the precipitated ageing of the native Greek population and the rapid increase of the city’s immigrant population — in terms of residential patterns that enable contact between the two groups, and of the poorly developed local welfare state, within which immigrants have been acting as a substitute for the underdeveloped services for the elderly. The paper draws attention to recent changes in immigrants’ profiles and especially to the decreasing inflow — and more recently the outflow (GSPSC, 2011) — from neighbouring Balkan countries and the parallel increase of asylum seeking migrants and refugees from war zones in the broader Middle-East, Afghanistan and the Indian peninsula. These changes have led to a potentially less beneficial co-existence between ageing and immigration for both sides in a period where public funds for social policies as well as private funds for substitute solutions become scarce.
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Keywords
Greek research, Greece, Australia
Citation
Maloutas, T., 2013. Ageing and immigration in the Greek capital. Policy issues and developments since the early 1990s. In M. Tsianikas, N. Maadad, G. Couvalis, and M. Palaktsoglou (eds.) "Greek Research in Australia: Proceedings of the Biennial International Conference of Greek Studies, Flinders University June 2011", Flinders University Department of Language Studies - Modern Greek: Adelaide, 192-207.