2 - 2003

Editorial

The people of Germany are growing older and older. Since many end their working lives soon after their 60th birthday, they live another two decades in retirement. Financially the majority are in a position to enjoy their leisure, pursuing hobbies and contacts and travelling with pleasure. A minority, especially very elderly divorced women and people who never earned much when they were working, have to struggle with financial problems.

The economy has discovered the elderly as consumers and woos them with special products and offers, while politicians engage in vehement arguments about how to plan for the future economic support of elderly persons. The prospect is that fewer and fewer gainfully employed persons will have to finance more and more elderly people. Because most experts believe that  pension payments cannot be raised any further, younger people are now expected, besides paying them, to save up for their own old age.

There is little discussion, however, of what it means for a society to have such a large proportion of elderly persons. As long as these persons are strong and active, they want to decide for themselves how to live. They live on their own and are involved socially, some even as "senior experts" on cooperation for development. Others live with their families, in senior citizens' residences or - most recently - in shared flats or houses with other elderly people. However, those who are in need of care require special arrangements. At home they would usually be cared for by women in the family. Any who cannot be cared for by their families must go to nursing homes. Irregularities are frequently discovered in such institutions, among other things because there are not enough employees to provide personal care and to respond to the wishes of the patients.