Older immigrants’ integration: organisational processes and practices in the Australian context

The scholarship on immigrant integration has tended to focus on the early period of settlement and to position immigrants as responsible for adapting to the labour market and the values and practices of the mainstream society in the host country. Normative individualised perspectives have neglected the role of other actors, the ongoing nature of integration, and the need for support to sustain it over time. This chapter addresses often neglected organising processes involved in the maintenance of immigrants’ integration during later life when they need to interact with and navigate through organisational care systems and gain assistance to ensure continued connection with a range of communities in the host society. Focusing on an Australian case study, the chapter outlines how multicultural policy has shaped the organisation of immigrant integration since the 1970s, before showing how government policies, funding, and practices operate in ways that homogenise older immigrants and shape how migrant support organisations work to facilitate and sustain continued integration. By applying the life course perspective to analyse interviews with organisational representatives who manage and support activities for older immigrants living at home, we show that integration is a multifaceted, dynamic process involving immigrants, society, and the state, and not short-term, linear, or unidirectional.