This article is broadly situated within the M-D debates and seeks to extend these in two ways: first, by considering older people as agents of development, and second, by adding 'Care as a key dimension in the M-D nexus. It highlights the contribution that older people make to development.
Paper long abstract:
The Migration-Development debates have considered the four dimension through which migration impacts development: remittances, return, diaspora, and the skilled. Moreover, the focus has been on the impact in developing countries of the Global South. This paper extends these arguments by arguing that Care is a dimension that not only has excellent potential to help understand the impacts of migration on development, but it does so across the Global South-North divide. Within this dimension, older people play an important role, but which has so far been overlooked by literature. Can they be considered as agents of development and if so, how? The paper seeks to address this dual question by drawing on the author's research in the Albanian context as part of MA and PhD work, and the broader knowledge from over 20 years of ongoing research engagement with Albanian migratory spaces. The article underscores the valuable contribution that older people make to development, especially through their participation in caregiving within and across national boundaries.