Age migration

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The terms age migration or retirement home migration , retirement migration or residence tourism are largely synonymous collective terms for the migration of persons receiving a pension or are in retirement. The concept of old age migration includes both the emigration of older people to another state ( transnational migration) and their relocation within a country ( internal migration ). Likewise, both persons with permanent relocation and persons with changing relocation (so-called seasonal commuting) are included.

Origin and destination regions

Germany, Austria and Switzerland

reasons

A distinction is made between "people who migrate abroad as retired migrants shortly before or shortly after the transition to retirement" and "people who only leave Germany at an advanced age and with foreseeable health problems or an incipient need for care". In the first group, convenience-oriented and tourist reasons dominate, in the second group health and family reasons. Most of the older emigrants from Germany only use their retirement home abroad seasonally and keep their domicile in Germany; only to a lesser extent are permanent residents abroad. The reasons for such multi-locality or commuting between two countries also include the desire to maintain family and social contacts and, for reasons of insurance law and language, stays for planned doctor and hospital visits.

The most popular destination countries for the 230,000 German pensioners abroad in 2017 were Switzerland (approx.26,000 people), Austria and the USA (approx.24,000 each).

Even among people with an immigrant background and binational couples are transnational lifestyles prevalent. See also: Situation of the elderly population of Turkish origin in Germany .

When deciding to emigrate at retirement age, in addition to the hope of a higher quality of life, factors such as the cost of living, any language barriers and the level of medical care play a role in the decision to emigrate.

Tax and social security

In 2016, over 234,000 German retirees received pension transfers abroad. Pension payments from abroad to persons who are resident in Germany are taxable in Germany ( world income principle ). Since 2005, all German pensions transferred abroad are also taxable in Germany . Double taxation agreements may come into play here. Recipients of German pensions who live permanently abroad are subject to limited tax liability in Germany ; This means that they only benefit from the tax exemption and the spouse splitting if they are treated as unrestrictedly taxable upon request ( Section 1 EStG Paragraph 3). (See also: Spouse splitting when residing abroad .)

Benefits from the German statutory pension insurance for which an entitlement has been acquired have been paid out in full abroad since October 1, 2013. Until then, there were exceptional cases in which the pension was only partially or not at all transferred abroad. If, for example, a beneficiary of the pension insurance had his habitual residence abroad, reductions in benefits were possible if there was no supranational or international regulation (e.g. a social security agreement ) to the contrary.

People with statutory health insurance are entitled to insurance from their previous health insurance company if they take up employment within a limited period of time after returning to Germany ; other requirements apply to pensioners (see also 9/10 rule ). In certain cases it can be useful to take out an entitlement to emigrate. If you emigrate to EU / EEA countries or Switzerland, statutory health insurance remains in place and can be used at your new place of residence abroad. However, benefits are only reimbursed to the extent that it is customary there for those with statutory health insurance. In Switzerland and France, you have to pay a high share of medical and hospital costs. In Spain, medication is free, but dental treatment is excluded.

The long-term care , however, was designed with the aim of protecting all living in Germany and sick insured persons there, according to the risk of dependency. According to the case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), cash benefits from long-term care insurance fall under Regulation (EEC) No. 1408/71 (successor regulation: "Regulation [EC] No. 883/2004). In the states concerned - in the EU, the EEC and Switzerland - depending on the individual case, care allowance is therefore also possible for a longer stay , although benefits in kind for home care abroad are not covered by the German long-term care insurance. For stays abroad of more than 6 weeks in the calendar year in other countries, the Entitlement to benefits from social long-term care insurance ( Section 34 (1) No. 1 SGB ​​XI ). On application, you can continue to be insured when you move your place of residence or habitual residence abroad ( Section 26 (2) SGB XI). This may make a difference in the case of entitlement to benefits: In the case of long-term care, only those who have been with for at least two years within the last ten years are immediately entitled to benefits has paid lazily ( Section 33 (2) SGB XI). Private supplementary long-term care insurances (such as daily care allowance insurances ) sometimes also pay for care abroad.

Germans who are habitually resident abroad are only entitled to social assistance benefits , such as basic security in old age and reduced earning capacity ( see also: Florida-Rolf ) , in accordance with Section 24 of the Twelfth Book of the Social Code only in narrowly defined exceptional cases .

Migration within the European Union

Freedom of movement

With the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, the right of free movement for EU citizens (Art. 18 EU Treaty, Art. 45 Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU 2009) was introduced in the 1960s initially only for employees, later also for the self-employed and service providers was also extended to students and retirees. Since 2004, EU citizens no longer need a residence permit when emigrating to another EU state on the basis of Directive 2004/38 / EC (Free Movement Directive) , which was previously required for a planned stay of more than three months. All you have to do is register in the population register of your new place of residence, which usually requires proof of health insurance and sufficient means of subsistence.

Social security agreement

For individuals, emigration to another EU country can result in changes in social and pension insurance as well as in health and long-term care insurance. If you are a pensioner with statutory health insurance in Germany and move to another EU / EEA country or Switzerland and are not entitled to your own pension there, you remain a member of the statutory health insurance due to a social security agreement and can take advantage of its benefits at your new place of residence abroad.

United States

Obtaining permanent residency in the United States can be more difficult in old age than in employment.

The coast of the US states of Florida and California attract numerous retirees. The so-called "pensioner cities " ( Sun Cities ) are mainly concentrated in the southwest . In the USA, people jokingly speak of "Snowbirds" when they have the time, money and health resources available from the northern US states or Canada, who spend the colder months in sunnier regions such as Arizona, Florida, California and Texas or even in Spend Mexico or the Caribbean and return north for the summer. In the USA, one can distinguish between three forms of age migration: at retirement, at the onset of the first health restrictions, and at the onset of a major need for long-term care. People in the first group tend to be younger than those in the second and third groups.

Naturalized immigrants in the United States have had the opportunity to sponsor their parents' foreign immigration to the United States since 1965 . Most of those newly immigrated to the US aged 60 and over are “sponsored” in this way through family reunification. Overall, the number of new immigrants aged 60 and over in 1986 was 40,000; it peaked at almost 101,000 in 2006 and was 86,000 in 2010. In order to immigrate to the United States, property and retirement income are not sufficient: the requirement is very large wealth, investments in the United States, or marriage to an American citizen. If you have another close relative (son, daughter, brother or sister) as a US sponsor , waiting times of years may apply due to quota regulations.

Other states

There is a trend in the UK for retirees to move to rural or coastal areas. The reasons given are the slower pace of life there and the landscape.

In Australia, the Gold Coast attracts many retirees.

In Japan it is discussed to what extent promoting the relocation of the elderly from Tokyo and the surrounding area to rural regions can help to counter the scarcity of care and supply infrastructure in metropolitan areas.

Some countries - such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand - issue a pensioner visa for permanent residence to foreigners of a minimum age limit who have a sufficiently high regular income or who make domestic investments.

Context and consequences

Foreign maintenance

In some countries there are commercial services specializing in the health and care of emigrants. A special case of age migration, the foreign Care represents - accommodation frail seniors in nursing homes abroad. In some cases, the intention may be to avoid high care costs in institutions in the countries of origin. Especially in the border areas of Poland , the Czech Republic , Hungary , Slovenia and Slovakia , facilities for people in need of care from Germany and Austria are being advertised. Following providers from German-speaking countries, entrepreneurs in Central Eastern Europe are also discovering nursing homes and senior citizens' residences as a lucrative business area. Care companies from Central and Eastern Europe have recently been investing more and more in Croatia and the Ukraine .

The problem is the exploitation of a cost gap in care costs between the country of origin and the host country of older people. The expected adjustment of low wages for nursing staff in a country of the European Union to the wage level customary in their country of origin makes corresponding business models financially unattractive in the long term.

Price level

In the target countries or regions, the immigration of comparatively wealthy seniors is expected to lead to an increase in jobs and a greater demand for goods and services, which is in the interests of the relevant providers.

However, local consumers who have been resident for a long time have to reckon with a generally rising price level due to the additional demand. In certain regions, such as the Ecuadorian Andes, residential tourism leads to an increase in property prices. This makes farming more difficult for farmers and young locals are forced to look for paid work or to migrate if they cannot afford to buy more land.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jordi Gascón: Between Tourism and Migration: Residential Tourism in the Ecuadorian Andes . Ed .: Tourism Watch. No. 81 , 2015, p. 14-15 ( academia.edu ).
  2. ↑ Lenore Sauer, Andreas Ette: Emigration from Germany . In: Federal Institute for Population Research (Ed.): Materials for Population Science . Issue 123, 2007, ISSN  0178-918X , p. 63 ( uni-hamburg.de [PDF]).
  3. ^ A b Günter Burkart: Future of the Family: Forecasts and Scenarios , Verlag Barbara Budrich 2009, ISBN 978-3-86649-237-0 . P. 143 .
  4. ^ Günter Burkart: Future of the Family: Forecasts and Scenarios , Verlag Barbara Budrich 2009, ISBN 978-3-86649-237-0 . P. 144 .
  5. ↑ Age migration - More German pensioners live abroad. January 16, 2019, accessed on May 19, 2019 (German).
  6. ↑ a b Jürgen Hoffmann: Far away you can live well with low pensions. In: Der Tagesspiegel. August 15, 2018, accessed December 23, 2018 .
  7. ↑ How does pension payment work abroad? In: www.deutsche-im-ausland.org. Retrieved December 23, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Pension payments abroad: in future always in full. German pension insurance, September 25, 2013, accessed on July 2, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Pension abroad. German pension insurance, accessed on March 12, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Horst Zeller: Delay abroad - what do pensioners have to consider? (No longer available online.) In: Information from the regional carriers of the German pension insurance in Bavaria, No. 06/2011, deutsche-rentenversicherung.de. August 11, 2011, archived from the original on July 13, 2017 ; accessed on January 20, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.deutsche-rentenversicherung.de
  11. ^ Rainer Hellstern: Health insurance for pensioners abroad. In: www.auswandern- Handbuch.de. October 1, 2012, accessed July 14, 2018 .
  12. ↑ a b Decision of the Petitions Committee of the German Bundestag. In: www.openpetition.de. August 29, 2017. Retrieved July 2, 2018 .
  13. ↑ a b Beate Wyglenda: "Oma-Export" - For care to Poland . Rheinische Post . June 29, 2016
  14. ↑ ECJ judgment of July 12, 2012. Quoted from: No entitlement to home care through long-term care insurance. In: www.deutsche-im-ausland.org. February 12, 2012, accessed July 2, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Suspension and expiry of the entitlement from long-term care insurance. In: www.pflege-deutschland.de. Retrieved December 23, 2018 .
  16. ^ A b Claudia Kaiser: Transnational Age Migration in Europe: Socio-Geographic and Gerontological Perspectives , Springer, 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-93493-8 . Pp. 104-105 .
  17. ↑ Health insurance for retirees abroad. In: www.auswandern- Handbuch.de. October 1, 2012, accessed March 12, 2017 .
  18. ^ E. Litwak, CF Longino: Migration patterns among the elderly: a developmental perspective , Gerontologist, Vol. 27, No. 3 (1987), pp. 266-272, PMID 3609792 .
  19. ↑ Paola Scommegna: Elderly Immigrants in the United States. Population Reference Bureau, October 2013, accessed March 12, 2017 .
  20. ↑ Sabine Hildebrandt-Woeckel: Emigration: Palm Beach and German Pension. In: FAZ. November 9, 2015, accessed July 14, 2018 .
  21. ^ Greg Spencer: We must plan for elderly migration. The Guardian, December 14, 2000, accessed March 12, 2017 .
  22. ^ Migration of elderly residents. The Japan Times, June 15, 2015, accessed March 12, 2017 .
  23. ^ Günter Burkart: Future of the Family: Forecasts and Scenarios , Verlag Barbara Budrich 2009, ISBN 978-3-86649-237-0 . P. 146 .
  24. ^ Advice on care abroad . Wohnen im Alter Internet GmbH
  25. ↑ Annette Dowideit: When German grandmas have to flee to Slovakia . welt.de . October 28, 2012
  26. ^ German pensioners are pushing senior citizens out of nursing homes in Eastern Europe . German business news . October 27, 2014
  27. ↑ Jordi Gascón; Translation from English: Christina Kamp: Between Tourism and Migration. Tourism Watch, December 2015, accessed March 12, 2017 .