This book project examines retirement plans and practices of Korea-born, Korean immigrants in Singapore or Los Angeles, who spent most of their working lives overseas there. How do transnational older adults practice retirement and maintain intergenerational relations with the family’s younger generations? Where do older people with transnational family backgrounds feel at home when they retire? Concepts for older transnational adults (Kim 2012; Treas 2008, 2014) are ‘linked lives’ and ‘ageing in place’ (Treas 2008; Wiles et al. 2012). We propose the ‘ageing with linked lives in transnational place/space’ to understand immigrants search for an ‘ideal’ or ‘right’ place –meanings feeling at home and maintaining kin ties.

While conducting the research on this topic over the last four years, I report at least four types of retirement choices: remain in destination city (where informants spent most of their working lives), move back to Korea, or relocate elsewhere (other U.S. state or third country); literally living transnationally – having multiple homes and living in more than two countries around the year. I also find that they construct several patterns considering their own circumstances of familial and friendship relations, financial resources (e.g., public pensions) available, as well as their own ‘transnational’, ‘local’ and ‘regional’ preferences built up during the earlier life course. Health care and other institutional environments of both origin and host societies are also considered. In essence, their ideal location is characterised by living “nearby” to their adult children; flexible scales of “being nearby” to their adult children span from the same city or country to intra- and inter-continental. This research suggests the importance of viewing ageing issues of transnational older adults through a transnational lens and, in particular, underscores the conceptual usefulness of extending ‘ageing in place’ and ‘linked lives’ concepts to flexible and multiple geographic scales from local to transnational.

The event is taking place in Bush House South East wing, room 2.10.

Picture: HARLI MARTEN/UNSPLASH

SPEAKER

Dr Jeehun Kim is professor of sociology in the Department of Social Studies Education, and Director of the Center for Global Korean and Asian Studies, Inha University, South Korea. Also, he is a visiting professor at the Department of European and International Studies, King's College London (03-05/2025) and at the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, London School of Economics. He was assistant professor at Sogang University, Korea and held visiting scholar positions at the National Institute of Education, Singapore, University of California, Irvine, a visiting senior research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, New York University, Columbia University, Stockholm University and the Centre for International and Strategic Studies (Jakarta, Indonesia).

He is a sociologist-cum-[Southeast/East] Asianist of contemporary Korean and Asian societies and global mobilities. His research interests are to understand how privileged, less privileged, and under-privileged Koreans and Asians aspire for social mobility and navigate the (trans-)national institutions and infrastructures for themselves and their families. His book includes Global Koreans and Transnational Korean Communities in Singapore (2023, Seoul: Nanam Press, in Korean).

His current or recent past research projects include ‘Global Korea, Transnational Koreans: Comparative Analysis of Korean Migration and Dynamic Mobilities of Koreans and Asians’ (funded by the Academy of Korean Studies, 2023-2026), ‘Transnational Elder Korean Immigrants in Singapore, Seoul and Los Angeles’ (funded by NRF, 2021-2024), ‘Korean community and Koreatown in globalizing Hanoi’ (a spin off project of funded NRF project, 2018-21), ‘Korean Professional and Middle-class Transnational Migrants in Global City Singapore’ (funded by NRF, 2018-21) and ‘Transnationalizing Korean Communities in Southeast Asia and Singapore’ (funded by AKS, 2016-9).