The New Housmaids

The new Housemaids
Foreign caretaker helping our parents and leaving their own life behind
The German society is changing. Fewer babies are born, mobility is rising with each generation, parents and their children often live far away from each other and for the older generation life has become increasingly longer. In the Media we can read about the question of how many labourers finance one pensioner. The federal government has raised the retirement age in an effort to balance this trend of more and more pensioners being financed by fewer workers. How can we keep on improving our living conditions under these conditions?
The long expectancy of life means that more and more old people are in need of care. In former generations it was common for the family to take care of the grandparents, but nowadays this is changing. Estimates say by 2030 there will be already 3.4 million people in need of care. According to a poll by the European Union, 9 out of 10 people don’t want to end in up nursing homes when they are old. But what if your Mother becomes in need of round-the-clock care. Should you move her to an old people’s home? Around two thirds of the 2.4 million people in need of care are still living in their own home, but for those in need of around-the-clock care the costs are exploding.
Long-term care insurance in Germany is dependent on cheap east European caretakers
The German health system has become dependent on caretakers from eastern Europe that are arranged to work in cheap on 24 hours 7 day standby-jobs paid by the families. Estimates speak of about 100.000 to 150.000 caretakers from the east currently working in private houses in Germany. This market segment often moves between the legal and the illegal. The costs for a German company providing 24 / 7 care at home can easily exceed 10.000 Euro per Month. For a woman that comes from eastern Europe and lives with the elder people in one flat, the cost is often not higher than 2000 Euro a month, depending on her language skills and whether she is works officially or black. It is cheaper for the old peoples’ families to use this market and leave their relatives at home than to send them to a nursing home. But for the caretakers this means that at this price and with their long working days they are earning just about 2.5 Euro per hour. For the German state the costs would also be exploding if all those estimated 150.000 people in need of care and currently living with an east European caretaker were to moved into a nursing home, so this ‘grey market’ is tolerated. This is because the benefits from the state’s long-term care insurance are much higher for one person in a nursing home then if he or she is still living at home.
The combination of the working and living space represents a strong physical strain
The women from Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria and other eastern European states, are finding themselves here in dependency situation, says Dr. Margret Steffen from the German labour union Verdi. Far away from their home they are getting in a new household which becomes their working and living space. German working time regulations seem here not to be more than any European regulation to fruit size, are not valid in these private households. Many of them have at some points had bad experiences. Avaricious old people counting how often the caretaker is showering, are stories that they experienced. The combination of the working and living space presents a strong physical strain.
“That is a new form of Domestic Work” Dr. Margret Steffen
This type of migration counters the current concept of migration. Few of the caretakers settle here. Normally they work in a shift system, three months of work and then one month free time, for which they return to their home county, is the rhythm in which the agencies work. Agencies handle the biggest part of the legal caretaker business. Under the term “caretaker 24” hundreds of them are popping up in the internet search engine. They function as agents between the families and the company in the county where the caretaker came from. The caretakers are employed in their home country and are then sent by these companies to the German households. This is a way to let even Romanians and Bulgarians work legally in Germany although the job market is still closed to these European country.
The impact of this work migration also affects the following generation of children who rarely get to see their own mother or grandmother. Also the east European states are struggling with this situation. The healthy systems in those countries are losing specialised personal and have to fight against the collapse with qualified migration workers coming in mainly from Asia.

Alexandra Drilea
Alexandra Drilea is running on an empty street in a small German town. It is the only thing she has here for herself. She doesn’t know anyone in the town she’s living. Living behind the windows of the small one family houses in this area there are mainly old people. The younger people here in her age all went to the bigger cities. At a bench next to a lake she makes a short break and then her glance goes to the watch, she has to be back soon.
“I miss some time for myself.”
The 25 year old young Girl came from one of the largest Romanian cities called Timișoara. At home she studied as a nurse at a university and worked in a private hospital for some time, but here in Germany the chances to earn money are better. Like many of her friends she immigrated for work, with the dream in mind to earn money for a better future.
“Home is not any more Home, all my Friends are spread in the world”
She left her private life and moved into a household with an old German woman Irmgrad Teipen, who she takes care of. The life of the 78 year old woman has become her life for 22 hours a day. Two hours of free time she is meant to have every day. This is written in the contract she signed with a Romanian company. The contract says that she is employed by a Romanian subcontractor that sent her via the Company Promedica24 to the household from Miss Teipen.
Last summer she came to Germany for the first time and took care of an older man. There she was working only for one month as a stand-in. Now she has three-month shifts in Germany and then one month of free time in Rumania. The fact that she just learned German before she got here, you can’t hear. But this is also based on the fact that Ms Teipen mentally is still fit. Only her legs don’t work as she wants them to anymore. For Alexandra Drilea time here runs slowly, every day she has the same things to do. Preparing meals for Ms Teipen, helping her getting dressed and keeping the house clean. She always runs around and never stops working, fearing boredom and unpleasant thoughts coming up.
“I don’t want to think much about how I feel here.”
She is looking forward to the future; this is going to be her last shift. She has saved some money to realise her dream, moving to England to her cousin and finding a job as a nurse there.

Danuta Kowalska
Ms Kowalska is standing in a small comfortable kitchen. “Achoo” Danuta Kowalska is holding a handkerchief in front of the old woman, who can’t stop sneezing. She is standing there patiently for some minutes, even when her lunch is getting cold. One bite for her and then one bite for Maria Fischer, who she cares for. Ms Kowalska takes the fork to the woman’s mouth, her lips are open but her eyes stay closed. Ms Fischer doesn’t notice much anymore. When the 86 year old woman is having a good day her eyes can stay open for some minutes, but most time she is sleeping. Without Ms Kowalska, the demented woman would be helpless like a baby. This is why Ms Kowalska used to say: “She is sleeping like a baby.”
Danuta Kowalska is from Poland. She doesn’t work in Germany officially, which is why I could not use her and Ms Fischers real names in this article. In her home country she worked as a needlewoman for 15 years, but then got unemployed like many others in here country. Going to Germany was a good opportunity to earn money for the family, so she moved to the neighbour country. Six years ago she worked as a caretaker in a German household for the first time. Her two kids had already grown up when she left and the family needed the money she earned to finance their studies. A big network of polish friends also working in Germany help each other to find jobs. The care for Ms Fischer became a family business for Ms Kowalska. In five-week shifts she and her sister take it in turns looking after Ms Firscher. Even her daughter has taken some shifts, to earn money for her wedding party.
It is not the first place she lived in Germany. There were five more but she can’t remember all the names. She didn’t always make good experiences at the time. Once she lived and worked with an old unfriendly woman who didn’t allow her to take the shower every day and kept all the good food away from her. When Ms Kowalska got her money, she dared to say her opinion:
“I am not a Dog.”
The time she has in her home country, she spends with her family who play a big role in her life. To spend time with her husband and seeing her kids and grandchildren is imported for her and there is her garden, which always needs some work. For a long time her mother, who lives at her sister’s place, was ill and she looked after her every day. This gives her the impression that the family holds together more in Poland then in Germany.