ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the situation of elderly non-white immigrants, some of whom came to the United Kingdom in the early 1950s, and who form the bulk of what the Office of Population Census and Surveys (OPCS) designate as 'ethnic' in its enumeration of the non-white British population. It builds on the literature on ageing in Europe that has been conducted under the European union's (EU's) Programme of Actions for the Elderly, and EU Observatory On Ageing and Older People, and also draws on the wider literature on the economics of ageing. The chapter provides a detailed account of the socioeconomic profile of the ethnic communities, including age structure, dependency, and employment that have important implications for the present and future generation of ethnic elderly. It argues that there are structural reasons for the first generation ethnic minorities to become poor when they age, because as immigrants they have usually started work later than the indigenous people.
