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After raising five children, celebrating the arrival of 16 grandchildren, overcoming a stormy marriage and completing 47 years of hard work and not always paid, Marcia Asipuela bought a one-way ticket to Spain. At 59, this Ecuadorian woman has taken the same path that her two brothers took 30 years ago. She has done it much older, more tired and more worried, but she does not feel that she is late, but at the right time. "Women over 50 in Ecuador have little job future," she says in a coffee shop in Madrid. "I already know what it's like to be far from home." Beside her, her current partner Mario Chicaiza, 55, nods. They share a simple dream: "We don't want to live here forever, I want to get a little job for three or four years and save that money so we can have a little house for our old age". A house in Ecuador, he adds, where, at least, there is no water and cold. "There they earn 450 dollars a month and it's not enough for anything," they say.
The couple calculated that in two or three months they would be able to get a job, but they have spent half a year running headlong into a labor market that is complicated for everyone, and especially difficult for older immigrants without papers. "If they don't come with a work contract, these people are going to have serious difficulties finding one," explains Rafael Durán, professor of Political Science at the University of Málaga. "If residents have difficulty finding work after 45, even more so a newcomer and over 55. They are people called to experience significant vulnerabilities," he adds.
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