Intersecting inequalities in later life: work-family trajectories and old age poverty among natives and immigrants in Finland

Concurrently to population ageing, the number of older people with immigrant background is rising. Immigrant background in conjunction with family and labour market trajectories during working age will increasingly shape inequality in late life. In this study, we ask: 1) What kinds of work-family trajectories can be identified among immigrant and native men and women in the years preceding retirement? 2) How do clusters of these trajectories differ by immigration background and gender? 3) How are these clusters linked to socioeconomic outcomes at age 65 and throughout working age? We use Finnish full-population register data from 1987-2022. Our analysis sample consists of individuals observed in the data for the entire observation period from age 45 to 65. Using multichannel sequence analysis and cluster analysis, we identified seven clusters. High-income earner with family was the most common among natives (21%), while low-income earner with family was the most common among immigrants (26%). The identified clusters correlate with differences in earnings development from age 45 to 65 and poverty status at age 65. Poverty at age 65 is higher among immigrants in all clusters, while being single is an important predictor of poverty regardless of the cluster. Gender appeared to affect poverty and earnings development much less than immigrant background when work-life trajectory was taken into account. Our study provides novel evidence on older immigrants and illustrates great heterogeneity regarding work-family trajectories, highlighting the importance of analysing determinants of poverty and inequality across the life course in a heterogenous population.