By Naomi Kresge
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany is grappling with an unexpectedconsequence of the industrialized world's ageing population:how to integrate its immigrant pensioners.
For decades, the authorities assumed Germany's "guestworkers", recruited during the boom years after World War Two,would eventually return home.
It has now woken up to the fact that many of its 2.5million people of Turkish origin are here to stay, and a largenumber are nearing retirement.
"For a long time Germany didn't envision itself as acountry of immigration," said Ulrika Zabel, an interculturalofficer with charity Caritas, which together with private carehome operator Vitanas will open Germany's fourth multi-culturalhousing centre for elderly people next year in Berlin.
"That caused our problem with seniors -- we didn't expectthey would stay."
Mustafa Makinist's father arrived from Turkey in 1973 withplans to work for five years. He stayed on, working as amachine repairman at Siemens for 25 years.
Despite having a house in Turkey, the 68-year-old pensionerstill spends half the year in Berlin. Makinist, 40, is planningto rent an apartment there when his father and mother are tooold to travel between their adopted and home countries. But hedismissed a common belief that Turkish families care for theirelderly relatives in large multi-generational households.
"Berlin society plays out in its senior housing -- it's inthese kinds of facilities that the city's diverse culture islived," he said. "The second generation has assimilated, and inBerlin the apartments are very small."
Preoccupied with security fears about youth violence,Germany's integration efforts have focused up to now on helpingyoung people. However, some organizations are starting to drawattention to the generation now reaching retirement age, andcompanies are addressing the niche.
About 18 percent of Germany's immigrants are over 55,according to Federal Statistical Office data from 2006. Morethan 700,000 of these older immigrants are in the final decadeof work before they are eligible to become pensioners.
TOP PRIORITY?
Germany's most recent report on ageing, published in 2005,said older migrants should be one of the country's highestpriorities. Immigrant seniors have more health problems, lowerincomes and less knowledge about what social services areavailable than native Germans, the report found.
Immigrants who have been in Germany more than 25 years havegenerated an average of 850 euros a year per person for thegovernment, it found, while the government had then spent about5 million euros on programmes for immigrant seniors.
Senior immigrants are also less likely than Germans to geta public pension, though they are eligible if they have paidinto the public system. The report found that in 2002, about 79percent of Turkish immigrants older than age 65 were drawing apublic pension, compared with about 96 percent of Germans.
For those who do have funds, private care for the aged iswidespread. Vitanas is not the only private operator to enterthe immigrant senior market. Berlin-based Marseille-Kliniken AGin February 2007 opened a care home offering "culturallysensitive" care for Turkish pensioners in Berlin.
Besides a prayer room facing Mecca and Turkish tea, thecompany says the home has bilingual staff and lets women becared for by women and men by men.
There are other diverse housing centres in Frankfurt, thecity of Duisburg near the Dutch border and in Berlin's heavilyTurkish Kreuzberg district.
Some other European countries are working on similarprojects, said Harry Mertens, senior project manager atMOVISIE, the Netherlands centre for social development.
Britain and the Netherlands offer mixed or culturallyspecific housing with a combination of independent flats andcommunal gardens or kitchens, Mertens said, and in The Haguethere are housing projects for pensioners from Surinam andChina.
CULTURAL IDENTITY
Cultural sensitivity is especially important as a setroutine dictates the rhythms of life in a care home, said BerinArukaslan, a family therapist and board member of the TurkishUnion in Berlin-Brandenburg.
"I wouldn't want to live in a house where I thought I hadto live a regulated life that didn't include what's importantto me," Arukaslan said.
"For example, Turkish and Arab migrants have largefamilies. I understand that in a normal German care home it canbe a problem if the family comes too often with too many peopleand stays too long. They're side by side with German gramps andgrans who only see their kids at Christmas and Easter."
Caritas's Zabel illustrated the challenges with the storyof an elderly Turkish woman eating a solitary dinner in hercare home's kitchen.
Uncomfortable with food not prepared according to Muslimreligious rules, she had eaten little in the dining hall.
Her carers assumed she did not want to sit with men andsent her to the kitchen. Language barriers meant the care homehad to call Caritas's Zabel -- after complaints from thekitchen staff that the woman was in the way -- to learn thetruth.
The Victor Gollancz House Intercultural Senior Centre inFrankfurt, which does outreach work with neighbouring mosques,has equipped a prayer room to face Mecca, offers halal mealsand holds Muslim services on Fridays.
Turkish immigrants occupy 12 of the 123 rooms: the centreis also open to native Germans. About 15 percent of the home'sstaff speak Turkish.
"We had to find out what customs are near and dear topeople, which rituals, which celebrations," said director UteBychowski.
(Reporting by Naomi Kresge; editing by Andrew Dobbie andSara Ledwith)
