| Title: | Too old, too foreign, too replaceable? How AI shapes livelihood security of ageing immigrants |
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| Authors: | ID Mihajlov, Martin, Institut "Jožef Stefan" (Author)
ID Pavleska, Tanja, Institut "Jožef Stefan" (Author) |
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| Files: |  URL - Source URL, visit https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sociology/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2026.1897614/full
 PDF - Presentation file, download (783,63 KB)
MD5: FA5F82B95776FFD1925FE3ACC38190C4
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| Language: | English |
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| Typology: | 1.01 - Original Scientific Article |
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| Organization: |  IJS - Jožef Stefan Institute
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| Abstract: | Background: Artificial intelligence is rapidly disrupting high-level cognitive and analytical labour. Yet, while emerging macroeconomic analyses increasingly map AI exposure across broad demographic boundaries, there is a scarcity of qualitative research exploring how these shifts are experienced by highly skilled older immigrant professionals navigating the workforce at the compounding intersection of age, migration status, and professional isolation.Methods: This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of 32 older immigrant professionals aged 50–55 across four AI-disrupted sectors: Healthcare, Finance, Marketing, and Information Technology. Semi-structured interviews averaging 55.4 min were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Participants also completed the General Attitudes Toward Artificial Intelligence Scale (GAAIS) and the Perceived Job Insecurity Scale, used descriptively to contextualise interview narratives.Results: Ten themes revealed a pattern termed Double Displacement: the compounding of chronic socio-cultural exclusion from domestic professional networks with the acute techno-cognitive demotion from autonomous expert to passive machine validator. A further finding, the foreignness premium, describes how AI systems expropriate the distinctive multicultural and regional professional assets that migration history conferred, turning these assets into drivers of late-career obsolescence. Additional themes document enforced professional silence near the retirement threshold, fragmented cross-border pension entitlements as a structural amplifier of displacement, and an identifiable set of buffer conditions under which Double Displacement does not fully materialise.Discussion: Contextualised within the WHO Active Ageing framework, cognitive automation simultaneously undermines income security, social participation, and psychosocial health among this population. The findings call for age-decoupled reskilling provision, anonymous organisational reporting channels for AI-related dissent, and cross-border pension coordination to address the specific vulnerabilities of internationally mobile professionals approaching retirement. |
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| Keywords: | older professionals, highly skilled professionals |
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| Publication status: | Published |
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| Publication version: | Version of Record |
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| Submitted for review: | 02.06.2026 |
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| Article acceptance date: | 17.07.2026 |
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| Publication date: | 04.08.2026 |
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| Publisher: | Frontiers |
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| Year of publishing: | 2026 |
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| Number of pages: | str. 1-15 |
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| Numbering: | Vol. 22, [article no.] 1897614 |
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| PID: | 20.500.12556/DiRROS-32073  |
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| UDC: | 331.5:004.8 |
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| ISSN on article: | 2297-7775 |
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| DOI: | 10.3389/fsoc.2026.1897614/full |
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| COBISS.SI-ID: | 287851011 |
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| Copyright: | © 2026 Mihajlov and Pavleska. |
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| Note: | Nasl. z nasl. zaslona;
Opis vira z dne 15. 8. 2026;
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| Publication date in DiRROS: | 26.08.2026 |
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| Views: | 31 |
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| Downloads: | 19 |
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